


Kagami

by goblin



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, SMAP
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, BDSM, Comedy, Evil Twins, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Swap, M/M, Mind Games, Mirror Universe, RPS - Freeform, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 21:07:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 35,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblin/pseuds/goblin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know how in SF or fantasy shows they sometimes do an episode where the characters go to a parallel universe and the other versions of everyone are evil, gay, have a goatee, or some combination of all three? Yeah – this is that fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Their Universe – Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: m/m homosexual activity, a little physical and a lot of psychological cruelty, non-con, dub-con, implied self-harm, and mentions of child abuse. It’s all spread out over around 30,000 words though, so the really nasty stuff is actually very occasional. 
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Neither of the universes depicted in this fic are intended to reflect reality, although one is a lot closer than the other. Characters may have the names and appearances of real people but their personalities are entirely my own projections based on my viewing of media appearances and my reading of other people’s fic. May contain traces of nuts.
> 
> SECOND DISCLAIMER: This fic follows a long tradition of parallel universe narratives in that it contains plenty of sex, queerness, BDSM, and gothic fashion. Please do not imagine that I am trying to imply that any of these things are morally wrong, although deceit, manipulation, cruelty and non-consensual sex certainly are. Yes, it’s a horrible place, but not everything in the other universe is necessarily “evil”. 
> 
> THANKS: to Vanessa, Yanie, Rinna, and everyone else who encouraged me to write this fic. Also huge kudos and bunches of flowers to Muffinbitch, to whom I owe half the original concept, large chunks of the plot, and the costume design of all the evil universe characters’ clothes. She also was willing to talk plot details over with me for hours on end and, as the icing on the cake, was my beta. Muffinbitch, I cannot thank you enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

Once upon a time, Nakai fell out of bed and into a different universe. With a rushing, squelching sound he flailed through the portal which had momentarily appeared beside his bed and, once through, fell up, up, up out of the portal on the other side and into bed, where Kimura was lying completely naked.

“Uaa!” exclaimed Nakai in alarm.  
Kimura stirred, his hair sliding silkily over his face and arm.  
“Why is Kimura naked?” thought Nakai in panic. “Why is Kimura in my bed?” And, most importantly: “Why has Kimura’s hair grown six inches in a single night?”

The short answers to these questions were:  
1) They’d been having sex;  
2) They’d been having sex;  
3) It hadn’t. It was exactly the same length as it had been the previous night, when they had, as I might have mentioned before, been having sex.

The problem was, this Nakai was not the Nakai who had been having sex with this Kimura. This Nakai had never even _met_ this Kimura. Thus, the confusion about the hair – which quickly became mutual, when Kimura woke up.

“Nakai-san,” he said, his voice low and purr-like, “When did you do that?”  
Nakai, already feeling very confused by this situation, said, “What?”  
“That. To your hair. You already went to the hairdresser?” Kimura checked the red digits of the clock. “At 6:23 in the morning?”  
“You’re the one who got hair extensions in the middle of the night!” said Nakai indignantly.

Kimura frowned for a moment, twisting his mouth. Then he smiled, slowly. The effect, considering the distracting expanse of his naked torso, was dizzying. “Whatever you say,” he said, eyes unreadable. Then he leaned in and pressed his luscious lips just beside Nakai’s, stood, and stretched. Scandalised, Nakai tried and failed to tear his gaze away from the muscles in Kimura’s back. Kimura sent an unmistakably flirtatious glance over his shoulder and began casting about on the floor for his clothes. Nakai just pulled the covers over his head.

“See you at rehearsal,” said Kimura, apparently unfazed by Nakai’s behaviour, and walked out.  
“Bye,” Nakai muttered weakly. And wondered what the hell was going on.

After a few minutes of lying in bed working on his powers of denial, the oddness of the morning became all too much for Nakai and he threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. Time to get dressed and face first the day, then the world.

The first thing he noticed was that the floor was clean. In fact, the entire room was freakishly tidy, in a dark, severe sort of way. Choosing to ignore the fact that someone had apparently been redecorating during the night, Nakai slid open the closet door – and was so shocked by what he saw there that he slammed it shut again. Slowly, hoping it had been some kind of hallucination, Nakai pulled the door sideways again. Horribly, it was true.

His closet contained a lot of rope. It also contained handcuffs, several whips of different styles, and, neatly arranged in order of size, a number of phallic objects Nakai didn’t even want to think about. These were all on the shelf though, which was more or less at eye level, and below that was the rail on which were hung clothes. What a relief. But they were certainly not his regular clothes – where were his pastel-coloured hoodies, his casual trainers, his collection of beanies? In their place were blood-red shirts with exaggerated collars, huge shiny platform boots with zips and buckles, and military-looking hats. Had he accidentally swapped rooms with some Visual Kei band member in the night? Even so, how would that explain Kimura’s behaviour?

Ah ha – a set-up. That’s what this had to be. Nakai began to look around in the corners and the ceiling for hidden cameras, but couldn’t find anything.  
“Alright, you can stop now,” he said loudly. “Ha ha, very funny.”  
Nothing happened.  
Uh huh. Maybe there was more in store for him in what was obviously a stupid TV special.  
He threw on a random assortment of clothes – he couldn’t face looking in the closet for any length of time – and stepped outside his own apartment.

Only he wasn’t outside.

Nakai stared with confusion at the dark corridor punctuated by morbidly purple light fixtures. Had he been moved to a set without his knowledge? This was ridiculous! He marched back inside and went straight out the back to the door which opened onto the balcony, fully expecting it to be fake and unable to be opened.

It opened.

Nakai stepped out onto his balcony and saw he was in exactly the same place as he always was.  
There was Shinjuku Park Tower, and the triangular-shaped building, and the supermarket down the road, but where was that scaffolding-covered thing that had been over on the left yesterday? And, more importantly – since when were there _three_ towers in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building?

Must be a painted backdrop surely, or done with computers somehow – Nakai leaned over the balcony, snatching at the air to see if it was solid. No; just air. He rushed inside, grabbed the first object he saw (a shoe) and threw it as hard as he could off the balcony, expecting at any moment to see it hit a wall or disappear through what he imagined could be a holographic image.  
The shoe fell all the way to the street below.  
Oh god. It was real. No one could mock this up this well – no one could remake the whole city. _Everything had changed._

Nakai went inside to the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked exactly how he should, whatever Kimura said about his hair – so he hadn’t changed into someone else, at least. But what was going on? Was this really real? Was he dreaming? Could he be in the Matrix?!

This was seriously giving Nakai a headache. He opened the cabinet above the basin in search of painkillers – and then had to search for some time. All his ordinary bathroom supplies were gone, replaced with an inordinate variety of suspicious-looking pills in unlabelled jars. The genuine medical supplies, it seemed, were right up the back. 

He took one, gulped down the glass of water, and leaned heavily on the basin with both hands.  
Then he looked the man in the mirror right in the eye and demanded, “Who in hell are you?”


	2. Their Universe – Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated PG-13.

In a spirit of exploration, Nakai stepped gingerly out of his room once more and into the corridor. Seeing that there was a door not far off to the left, he walked up to it to look closer at the small metal plaque affixed. As he hadn’t put his glasses on, he had to go quite close before he made out the kanji for “Kimura Takuya”, panicked, and hurried quickly on, as there was another door further along. When he got closer to read he saw that it read “Kusanagi Tsuyoshi”. Ah! Tsuyoshi could be counted on to be reasonable, Nakai thought, and decided to knock on the door and quiz his band-mate about whether the whole world had gone insane or if it was himself. He raised his hand to knock – when a loud CRACK made him jump. He froze, hand still poised in the air, knock-ready. Then he heard Tsuyoshi’s voice speak with a vicious tone he’d never heard in it before. “ _Say it_ , Goro.”

A whimper, and another CRACK.  
Okay, maybe not so reasonable.

Then, catching a movement in his peripheral vision, his head snapped to the left. Standing and staring at him was a man wearing wide black satin pyjama pants, a loose fuzzy sweater falling off his shoulder, and bare feet. He had a massive shock of wild, black hair and his thin body was held in a state of tension, as if he expected at any moment to be struck. His eyes were huge and blank.

It was Shingo.

“Nakai-sama,” he said with a kind of horror, “what have you done with your hair?”

* * *

Shingo had insisted (although very timidly, Nakai thought) on them returning to Nakai’s room to discuss things, rather than answer in the corridor such difficult questions as “where am I?”, “why was Kimura naked and in my bed?”, “who does S&M at this time of the morning?”, and “what’s wrong with my hair, anyway?”

“Nakai-sama,” said Shingo with concern, “I think you may have lost your memory.”  
“My memory is fine!” contradicted Nakai. “It’s a Tuesday, we’re performing on a gala in two days time, Goro can’t kick his damn leg high enough, you eat too much mayonnaise, I can’t sing, and, and, and Tsuyoshi speaks Korean. And Kimura and Shizuka had their wedding anniversary in October. No, November!”  
“Kimura-sama isn’t married,” said Shingo softly.  
Nakai blinked. “He isn’t? Oh, he isn’t…” He wasn’t sure whether this made finding Kimura naked in bed this morning any better or not.  
“And of course, Nakai-sama is just being modest when he says he can’t sing. But apart from that he remembers perfectly.”  
“Yeah, I also remember you being way less skinny, and way less polite.”  
Shingo bowed and said, “I speak respectfully to Nakai-sama as befits his station.”  
“Station?” repeated Nakai in astonishment.  
“As leader,” Shingo clarified.  
Nakai was taken aback. “I might be the SMAP leader, but that doesn’t mean you have to call me Nakai-‘ _sama_ ’. Nakai- _kun_ is fine!”  
“Nakai…kun?” Shingo blanched.  
“Or how about ‘that guy’, or ‘hey you’ or ‘baka-yaro’!” suggested Nakai.  
Shingo cracked up, but quickly suppressed the laughter.  
“It’s okay, go on! What else am I for if not to laugh at?”  
Shingo bit his lip but there was still a smile on his face, small and nervous though it was.  
“Shingo,” said Nakai, with a little more seriousness, “you’re different to how I remember you. So is Kimura, and so is Tsuyoshi, and so is the whole damn city. So what on earth has happened? Am I dreaming? Pinch me, Shingo!”  
Shingo shrank away, terrified at the notion of inflicting pain on Nakai.  
“What is your problem? Baka. I’ll pinch myself.” Nakai did so, and hard too. “Ow!” It hurt – and he wasn’t waking up.  
“I guess I am awake,” mused Nakai. Then he adopted an affected lecturer’s pose. “Consider,” he announced, as if Shingo was his student. “Which of the following is true? A) _I’m_ wrong – that is, I’m going mad or have some kind of rare memory disorder; B) _Other people_ are wrong – that is, they’re playing a huge practical joke on poor unsuspecting me; or, C) _This place_ is wrong. That is… I’ve crossed over… to another… world.”  
“Impossible…” whispered Shingo.  
“You’re right,” said Nakai in similarly lowered tones. “I must be mad. That’s the only sane answer.”  
“Well nobody’s trying to trick you, I promise,” said Shingo.  
“Hm. Definitely mad.”

Nakai was concerned. If he had gone mad, when (if ever) would he be going sane again – and would it be obvious when he had? What if everything seemed normal for two weeks and then suddenly he hallucinated Kimura in bed with him again? Was his subconscious trying to tell him something?

It all seemed so complicated and confusing that Nakai, being not exactly given to introspection, simply gave up. Assuming that this was real and possibly even another world was much easier than philosophical musings on the nature of reality itself – so that was what Nakai did. Then he decided to stay home so he didn’t have to talk to the others, who were clearly weird. (Weirder than Shingo.)

_TK TK TK – BRRRRRR_

Nakai jumped. “What the hell was that?”  
A polite but slightly distorted female voice rang out. “SMAP rehearsal, 8:45am. SMAP rehearsal, 8:45am.”  
“It’s the PA system,” said Shingo unnecessarily.  
“I am so not going to that.”  
Shingo opened and closed his mouth a few times, flustered. Then he said, delicately, “I couldn’t say that I would recommend that course of action.”  
“Why not? Anyway I’m not supposed to be in this concert, the other guy is. Can’t we just wait for him to show up?”  
Shingo looked even more alarmed at that possibility. But then he thought for a bit, and said, “But… if you woke up this morning and you were him, then maybe he woke up and he was you.”  
Nakai gaped. “We’ve swapped bodies!!”  
“So you don’t really look like this then?” said Shingo.  
Nakai frowned. “Oh – no. I do look like this. Why would we need to swap bodies then?”  
They stared at each other foolishly for a few seconds before Shingo said, “You wouldn’t.”  
“Oh. Right,” said Nakai, realising how idiotic their conversation had just been. “Then I guess we just got… swapped.”  
“A different Nakai-sama…” said Shingo, considering the idea. Nakai certainly was acting differently…  
“Anyway, I’m not going out there, this place is weird. I’ll just call in sick.”  
“And if you’re still here tomorrow?”  
“I’ll just tell them I lost my memory,” said Nakai. “Like, I hit my head falling out of bed this morning and I’ll be back to normal in a day or two. That’ll make them forgive me a few out-of-character moments, right?”  
Shingo shifted anxiously from foot to foot, choosing his words carefully. “I think that possibly might not be the best idea.”

But Nakai had realised something. “Hang on – falling out of bed… I had the weirdest experience when I fell out of bed this morning, it felt like the world went all wavy and upside… down… _hey_!” he yelped. “I _did_ fall into another world!”  
“Nakai-sama must be right,” said Shingo, and he wasn’t even saying it to be polite.  
“You have got to stop calling me that.”  
Shingo paused, again not wanting to speak out of turn. “As you wish,” he said. “But please allow me to call you Nakai-sama in front of the others. I think it could be very important to keep them from finding out that anything has happened.”  
Nakai frowned. “So what if they find out? I understand that the public shouldn’t find out I’ve had a radical personality change, but the other members can cope, can’t they?”  
Slowly, with a horrified expression on his face, Shingo shook his head. “They would… they could…” Shingo stopped, breathed, gathered his thoughts and began again. “If you don’t maintain their respect,” he said, “you might be… superseded.”  
Nakai stared blankly. “Meaning?”  
“Meaning… if they find out you’re not your usual self, you could lose your leadership… to Kimura-sama.”  
Nakai’s eyebrows shot up. “Huh?”  
“He will become our Leader – and you would become last in rank. Below me.”  
Nakai looked at Shingo’s pinched, frightened face. How badly would the Shingo he knew have to be treated before he became like this? And what would such treatment do to Nakai? This situation was starting to seem more and more real, and Nakai didn’t want to assume it was all a horrible dream and suffer for it later. “Right. Okay. So… then… I guess I have to fake it.”


	3. Their Universe – Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

“Teach me how to be me.”  
Shingo looked at him with eyes wide, overwhelmed at the enormity of the task.  
Nakai rolled his eyes. “Don’t have a nervous breakdown, just start with one thing. What’s one thing that should be different?”  
Shingo thought for a bit. “Well first of all you have to dress like you.”  
Nakai looked down with a twinge of embarrassment at the odd ensemble he had randomly selected earlier. “Oh.”  
Shingo helped him pick out something, although it took awhile because Nakai refused to actually look in his closet.  
The chosen outfit was not colourful, nor silly, nor could it be considered “fun” in any way. Actually, considering the dark colours, high collar and faintly military feel, it said something more like “obey me or I will punish you”, which was probably exactly the look he should be going for. He swung his arms back and forward, but the jacket didn’t have much give in it. The unfamiliar feel of the boots on the back of his calves was unsettling. The entire outfit was oddly constricting. He found himself unable to slouch.  
Dubiously, he assessed his appearance in the mirror. “Do I look like me yet?”  
“Well,” said Shingo, with a concerned look, “there’s still your hair.”  
Nakai scowled. “My hair is fine. I like my hair.”  
Shingo looked at him askance. “It’s not like you…” he ventured.  
Nakai sighed theatrically. “Fine,” he said, and handed Shingo a comb. Ten minutes and liberal amounts of hair product later, Nakai’s hair was sweeping down rakishly low over one eye and spiking up at the back. He looked utterly unlike his normal self and, presumably, more like he was supposed to.  
Shingo tried to convince him it was a good idea to put eye-liner on but Nakai steadfastly refused. “Besides,” he said, “we’ve spent enough time on how I _look_. How am I supposed to _act_?”  
Shingo looked at him sorrowfully. “I think I should should show you… you.”

The third disc of a SMAP concert DVD is usually a good place to find candid and intriguing backstage footage, and this one was no exception. But it was unlike any concert DVD Nakai had ever been a part of.  
He saw himself not asking people to do things, but ordering them. Shortly, arrogantly, and with the minimum of niceties, he gave orders to to the sound guys, the backup dancers, and his fellow members. And every one of them bowed and said, “Yes, Nakai-sama.”  
He tried to spot differences in the man’s face, searching for evidence that he was merely a clever lookalike. He paid attention to mouth movements, checking to see if it had been dubbed.  
It was perfect.  
It must be real.  
There was no longer any doubt in Nakai’s mind. There _was_ another Nakai – and it must be this other Nakai’s world in which he found himself.

“Does that help Nakai-sama?” Shingo asked nervously.  
“Well, it gives me some idea,” muttered Nakai. “But I think I need to practise. I know, I’ll pretend to be me, okay? And I’ll come in here and say something and you tell me what I’m doing wrong. Don’t worry about being polite or anything, I don’t care about that stuff. Just say ‘wrong’ and stop me. Alright?”  
Shingo nodded slowly. “Alright.”  
Nakai went out into the corridor and came back in, trying to reproduce the aura of menace his counterpart gave off. “Hi Shingo,” said, making sure to keep his voice deep and relatively unmodulated. “How are you?”  
“Wrong,” said Shingo instantly.  
“Ehh??” Nakai couldn’t believe it – he’d been trying so hard!  
“You wouldn’t ask me how I was,” explained Shingo.  
“I wouldn’t??”  
“You might not even say hello.”  
Whoa. Nakai took a deep breath, and released it. “Let’s start again.”  
They spent the next hour or so practising. It was difficult; Nakai’s first instinct was to be chatty and personable, but Shingo kept telling him he had to be more authoritative, act more powerful and less interested, order people around more. Nakai could do it, but he had trouble sustaining it. He kept slipping up.  
It was nearly time to go. “Well, at least I have some idea of what I’m meant to be doing,” Nakai sighed. And off they went.

It turned out they didn’t have to go far for rehearsal – it was in the same building. Nakai had begun to wonder whether they ever got to leave this place.  
When the elevator arrived it contained a pretty young man with lashings of eyeliner and a dark braid that went half way down his back. Belatedly, Nakai recognised him as Takizawa Hideaki.  
“Hey, Tackey,” he said, trying to make conversation. “How’s Tsubasa?”  
Tackey looked at him blankly. “Who?”  
Nakai was rendered literally speechless. No Tackey & Tsubasa?? How bad could this universe get?  
They stepped out of the elevator, but then Shingo held up his hand to get Nakai’s attention.  
Nakai stopped. “What?”  
Shingo took a deep breath. “Nakai-sama is to be congratulated on his kindness in talking to younger members,” he said, “but please may I remind him that it is not usual for him to do so. Also may I recall to his mind how well he just did at projecting authority and power when we practised together and entreat him to continue in such a way.”  
Nakai looked at him askance. “So… you’re telling me off for being friendly and talkative to Tackey when you’ve just spent an hour teaching me how to be not friendly and talkative?”  
Shingo visibly shrank. “I didn’t mean to scold – ”  
Nakai rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you just say so? Sorry Shingo – I’ll be more careful from now on, yeah?”  
Shingo looked very, very worried.

Upon entering the rehearsal room Nakai almost did a double take. Everybody looked as different from normal as he did.  
Kimura was wearing incredibly tight black PVC pants and a high-collared zip-up jacket, which was open to reveal a chest barely covered by a fishnet top. He was smoking and staring moodily off into the distance. Tsuyoshi was wearing an immaculate, fastidiously neat pinstriped suit, his hair cut short and severe, and next to him sat Goro, whose top was alarmingly sheer and boots alarmingly huge. They were on very tall platforms and adorned with chunky buckles. Tsuyoshi was playing with a silver chain that led off his bracelet to the left, where it connected to a ring, which was on a collar, which was around… Goro’s… neck.  
Just as this horrible idea was sinking in to Nakai’s head, Tsuyoshi made it worse by stroking Goro’s hair, and within seconds Goro was actually arching his neck to Tsuyoshi’s touch like a cat. Nakai swallowed, unwillingly reconceptualising the activities he’d overheard that morning as consensual.  
Seeing Nakai and Shingo enter, Tsuyoshi unclipped the chain from Goro’s collar and all of them rose to their feet. The other four members (along with a fifth man who Nakai assumed was the singing coach) formed a line in front of Nakai and bowed deeply, saying deferentially, “Good morning, Nakai-sama.”  
Nakai was sickened but tried to act blasé. “Morning,” he said shortly. And then, unable to think of anything else that wasn’t showing too much of an interest, he said, “Well, let’s get started.”


	4. Their Universe – Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG-13.

Rehearsal wasn’t as bad as Nakai expected. As usual, when he couldn’t quite get the melody he sent himself up, singing deliberately badly – but disconcertingly nobody laughed. Nakai gave up trying to joke and just tried to learn the tune right. The soft-spoken singing coach was unerringly patient. It was kind of creepy.  
Any mistake Shingo made, however, was instantly leapt upon and criticised scathingly by the other members. “Off-key again, Shingo?” “Better if you don’t sing at all, Shingo.” One time Tsuyoshi actually slapped Shingo across the face, prompting a yelp.  
“There. _That_ should help you get the high notes.”  
“Hey – !” Nakai interjected. He’d done his share of teasing and bullying, but it had all been in fun… not like this.  
Everybody’s heads instantly snapped around to look at him, alert for new orders.  
Shingo was mouthing “wrong”.  
Shit. He couldn’t defend Shingo, it wouldn’t be in character… so what could he say? “Let’s just get on with this. We’ve wasted too much time already.” 

He ate lunch with Shingo. “Are you okay?” he hissed over his ramen.  
Shingo looked at him strangely. “What do you mean?”  
“Everyone’s being so horrible to you. I wanted to stop them, but…”  
Shingo just shrugged and went back to his pitifully small lunch. “That’s normal.”  
“It shouldn’t be!”  
“I’m used to it.”  
Nakai gave up – Shingo was too damned hopeless. “Well what about me, then? Am I doing okay?”  
Shingo nodded and tried to smile with encouragement. It looked a little strange though. Apparently he was unused to smiling.  
The afternoon was spent learning their individual parts and of course the words. Thankfully Nakai didn’t have to do this with all the others; the less time he spent with the other members, he figured, the less time they had to work out he wasn’t who he was supposed to be. Nakai didn’t have a great deal of confidence in his ability to pull this off.

At last the day’s rehearsal was over, and Shingo followed Nakai wordlessly to his room. Nakai leaned on the bench heavily and groaned. He was very much looking forward to getting back home to his own world, and he had a good idea of how to do it. He just had to last the night… with this thought, he went into the bedroom.  
Shingo followed him.  
“Who do you want in your bed tonight?”  
Nakai stared at Shingo, who had asked the question in the same tone one might use to ask what a person wanted for dinner. “Eh??”  
“Well… do you want me to call Kimura-sama over, or…?”  
“No!” exclaimed Nakai, his shocked brain at last processing Shingo’s meaning.  
“Then… Goro-sama or Tsuyoshi-sama?”  
“No, no!!”  
“Oh. I understand.” Expressionless, Shingo lowered himself to his knees and reached for the buckle of Nakai’s belt.  
Nakai stumbled backward in horror. “No, no, you _don’t_ understand! I don’t sleep with my band-mates!”  
Shingo gazed up at him in incomprehension. “You don’t?”  
Nakai held his head in his hands. “Just go back to your room.”  
Shingo rose to his feet, looking confused, and began to trail off to the door.  
A thought occurred to Nakai. “Shingo?”  
“Yes, Nakai-sama?”  
“If I had no one in here for, say… a whole week… would that be unlike me?”  
Shingo looked at him for a moment, and then slowly nodded. “Yes, Nakai-sama.”  
Shit. “What about just a night?”  
“That would be okay. But more than that, and…”  
Nakai nodded. “Right. Okay. So after tonight – if I’m still here – you can sleep in here with me, that’ll make it look like we’ve actually… y’know.”  
“Had sex.”  
“Don’t say it!!”  
Shingo looked so forlorn at this that Nakai felt positively guilty for shouting.  
It was all too difficult. What a day… Nakai flopped down on the bed and sighed. “Just enjoy your night alone tonight, it could be the last for awhile with the bed aaaalllll to yourself.”  
Shingo shrugged sadly. “I won’t be alone tonight anyway,” he said.  
“Hm?”  
“Goro-sama and Tsuyoshi-sama will probably take me again,” he said with a shiver, and turned to leave.  
Nakai remembered the kinds of things those two got up to and changed his mind. “Stop,” he said. “Shingo, come back. You can stay here with me.”

Shingo offered to sleep on the floor, but Nakai felt awful about that idea and wouldn’t have a bar of it. “You’re sleeping in here with me,” he said firmly.  
Didn’t mean he felt comfortable about it.  
Nakai spent some time ferreting about in the bottom of the closet, before sighing loudly.  
“What’s wrong?” asked Shingo.  
“Don’t I have pyjamas?”  
Shingo looked at him strangely. “No.”  
Oh. Of course. Nakai had certainly slept naked before, but never while somebody male was there.  
Nakai decided to put on a sleeveless top and the least uncomfortable pants he could find, and call himself dressed for bed.  
He turned away to change. “Don’t look,” he said.  
It was stupid. Nakai generally had no compunction about stripping down in public, and had been practically naked in front of Shingo dozens of times… but with this Shingo, in this situation, Nakai felt incredibly uncomfortable about merely changing in front of him.  
“You _are_ going to wear something, right?” he said over his shoulder to Shingo nervously.  
“Okay,” said Shingo. “What would you like me to wear?”  
There was a long pause. “Um… pyjamas.”  
“Oh. Okay.”  
After a brief absence to get his pyjamas and brush his teeth, Shingo came back to find Nakai lying on his back in a completely unrelaxed fashion, very close to the edge of the bed.  
Shingo climbed in, uncertain, respectfully keeping his distance.  
Silence. Then:  
“Are you sure you don’t want me to – ”  
“I’m sure,” cut in Nakai quickly, raising the covers up to his chin. It was going to be a long night.

Nakai was a small man but he generally took up an awful lot of space sleeping, sprawling out across his bed with limbs akimbo. Shingo, who was much taller, took up almost no space at all, as he slept curled up into a tiny ball. Several times Nakai woke during the night and discovered to his dismay that he was taking up ninety percent of the bed while Shingo lay uncovered, huddled so close to the edge that Nakai was worried the poor boy would fall out. (And it was falling out of bed that had gotten Nakai into this mess in the first place.) He would smooth out the covers and reign in his arms and legs closer to his body, trying to make more space, but the next time he woke up it was just as before. He felt awful, but he didn’t know quite what to do about it so he turned over and tried once more to sleep.


	5. Our Universe – Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG-13.

Nakai woke feeling as if wrenched very suddenly from deep sleep. He turned over to find Kimura gone already – how disappointing. It was still early, and Nakai had hoped for another round before breakfast. He swung his legs out of bed, but his feet instead of touching floor touched… something else. Something hard and metallic, but light, that clinked out of the way as soon as his toe brushed it. He peered down and saw to his revulsion that it was an empty beer can. And it wasn’t the only one; several were scattered over the floor, which was barely visible through the piles of clothes in various states of uncleanliness. 

His first thought was that someone had trashed his apartment. Cold fury filled his brain. Who would _dare?_ Looking around for evidence, he picked up a random item of clothing and examined it. What kind of a person, he wondered with distaste, owns a hot pink and peppermint green striped polo shirt?  
There was furniture in the room that hadn’t been there before. How had they managed to move it in and trash the place so silently? Had he been sedated? He felt fine, now he was awake... He stared at the piece of paper he had just picked up from on top of a pile of DVDs. It was a note, in his own handwriting. “Rehearsal: 8am Tuesday.” That was today, and he had no memory of writing it.   
Could he be suffering from amnesia? He turned on his phone and checked the date – no, it was the Tuesday he was expecting it to be. 

Nakai was confounded. What on earth was going on?

He pulled on a random pair of pants and grabbed the pack of cigarettes that was thankfully lying on the chest of drawers. He lit one and went on to the balcony to smoke and stare down at the city, just like he always did when he had something to think about. He was greeted with the same bit of skyline he saw every morning.   
With a few notable differences.  
Almost disbelieving his own eyes, Nakai strode rapidly to his front door and swung it open, peering out into the corridor – only to realise it wasn’t a corridor at all. He was at the top of a set of stairs, and outside.

Nakai had begun to realise that something was dreadfully wrong with the world, or with his mind – and Nakai refused to acknowledge the possibility of his own mental incompetence. Therefore, he concluded, somehow – without his knowledge – everything had been changed. Everything, that is, except… him.

Suddenly a burst of horrifyingly upbeat music jangled out, making Nakai jump. He looked around in irritation for the source.  
It was his phone.  
He saw, flashing on the display, “Shingo”. Not knowing quite what to expect, he answered.  
“Moshi moshi?”  
“Oh hey, I found your white hat. Are you in the car?”  
Nakai was disoriented by the apparent non sequiturs. “Huh?”  
“If you are, go home. Rehearsal’s been changed, Kimura-kun’s flight got delayed last night. Now we get to muck about till ten!”  
Nakai was speechless. Could this cheerful, confident voice really belong to _Shingo?_  
“What’s with you, all quiet? Ha ha, I’ll let you get back to sleep. Later, Nakai-kun!” And he hung up.

What the hell did Shingo think he was playing at, talking to him so disrespectfully? Nakai-kun, indeed! He pressed the menu button on his phone, intending to call Shingo back and give him a piece of his mind… but then stopped. It wasn’t just his surroundings that were different, he realised. It was the people too. He couldn’t take anything for granted. So what had happened? It couldn’t be an elaborate joke; it was impossible for someone to remodel bits of Tokyo in the night, and he knew he hadn’t written that note, yet it was his own handwriting. This was a different Nakai’s bedroom, a different Nakai’s SMAP, a different Nakai’s… world.

If it was real, that is. Was it possible that this was all some sort of illusion? He knew he hadn’t taken any hallucinogenic drugs recently, and he didn’t think he was still asleep… he pinched himself to make sure. The twinge of pain was unmistakably real. Then Nakai started thinking about whose fault this was and how he was going to punish them when he found out, which he spent several happy minutes planning before realising that he had to work out what exactly had happened first and who exactly was at fault before he could get to the punishment bit. Damn.

If Nakai jumped out of a window, would he wake up in his own bed? He didn’t feel like testing the theory. What if he went to sleep again? Would that return him to his usual reality? Right now his brain was whirring with activity, which put paid to that option, and besides, his natural curiosity was getting the better of him. What was this place? What were the rules here and could he bend them to his own advantage? What would happen if he went to the rehearsal which the note and this outrageously disrespectful Shingo had told him about?

Nakai decided to go. If the illusion melted in the middle, well, no harm done – and if it didn’t… well, it was the perfect disguise, now he came to think of it. He would be disguised as himself. He would be disguised as an honest man. And there were certainly possibilities in _that_.

So: if he was going to pass as his other self even temporarily, Nakai realised, he was going to have to do some research to find out what he was supposed to be like. Skipping through a few concert DVDs gave Nakai a good idea of where SMAP was at musically and image-wise, and gave some horrifying demonstrations of his personality – apparently he had the sense of humour of a 6-year-old. A quick look on the internet (once he had found the computer, hidden as it was beneath a sizable pile of jackets) provided him with a brief run-down of the band’s history. It also, to Nakai’s astonishment, revealed that Kimura was married. Kimura, married – and with children? Ridiculous! Absurd! Even stranger, it was rumoured to have been a shotgun wedding… Nakai was puzzled. Why didn’t they just make the girl have an abortion and then cover it up, like they usually did when such things happened? Nakai was equally puzzled by the apparent lack of cover-up over Goro’s traffic infringement scandal; according to his memory of the incident, the woman Goro hit had been killed and the public never knew a thing. Clearly the media had a considerable degree of freedom around here, and celebrities consequently were far more accountable for their actions. Nakai frowned in distaste, closing the computer down. This didn’t seem like the sort of place he’d like to hang around. 

Still, whether he could get back home or not, he had to survive in the meantime – and either way, he reflected, as he looked exactly like a man he was not, he was in an excellent position to do just what he loved best: to manipulate and deceive. If he couldn’t get back to his own world, he had better start changing things in this one right away, so that things were more to his liking. In any case, even if he could get back he’d rather not do so just yet. After all, he had been presented with pretty much virgin territory – unscathed bandmates, ripe with innocence. What a wonderful second chance, to fuck everyone over all over again.

With this in mind, he began to search for more information. Where was something personal? Concert DVDs were all very well, but they were performance, not reality. Casting about for evidence, Nakai at last spied something he had dozens of at his own apartment – an unlabelled videotape. At last, he thought, a chance to see how the members interacted sexually. He popped it in the VCR, pressed play, and was very disappointed.

All five members were present, but none of them were doing anything remotely sordid with each other. Instead, they were sitting around on couches and armchairs, chatting happily. It appeared to be a Christmas party. Very boring television it made for, too, Nakai thought, although admittedly it was unedited – but after a few minutes he realised that because it was also unscripted it was giving him invaluable information about how these SMAP members interacted with each other. He noticed how easily Tsuyoshi got drunk, how Shingo loved to joke around. He noticed they all called him “Nakai-kun”. He noticed the friendly, unselfconscious hands around each other’s shoulders, and that whenever they hit each other they were only joking. He watched, and he learned.


	6. Our Universe – Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated R.

When Nakai walked into rehearsal, Shingo stared at him and said, “What have you done with your hair?”  
Damn. He’d forgotten to research his own hairstyle. “Just wanted to try something different,” he said.  
“It’s good!” said Tsuyoshi, with slightly too much enthusiasm. Nakai couldn’t believe how badly he lied – this was _not_ his Tsuyoshi.  
With absolutely no regard for Nakai’s sense of personal space, Shingo leaned closer, frowning. “Is that an earring?”  
Luckily at this point Kimura walked in with Goro not far behind, and the resulting greetings distracted Shingo. This allowed Nakai to quickly take out the earring and slip it in his pocket, highly unsettled by Shingo’s too-familiar behaviour.

Rehearsal began. Nakai had been worried he wouldn’t know any of the lyrics, but it turned out that they were just starting to learn a song that day. Just as in his own universe they were doing a cover for the benefit concert.  
Nakai was having a little trouble with the tune, but was outraged to hear Shingo say, “Nakai-kun, that was _awful_.”  
Nakai almost couldn’t believe his ears. “What did you say?”  
“Awful! Did you have to block your ears, Tsuyopon?”  
“Oh yes,” said Tsuyoshi, trying to keep a straight face. “To stop the pain.”  
“How is it possible that you two are standing here and insulting me like this?” demanded Nakai, so sharply that everyone fell silent – except for Tsuyoshi and Shingo, who were still giggling like idiots.  
“Sounded like a cat stuck in a drainpipe,” said Shingo.  
“No, an old woman with her hair caught in a comb,” put in Tsuyoshi.  
“Will you two be quiet?” said Kimura suddenly, his voice loud and angry. “We’re trying to rehearse here. You’re acting like children!”  
Nakai’s first instinct was to round on Kimura and shout, “I don’t need you to defend me!” But he resisted, as he realised that he needed Kimura on his side right now. Be nice, he told himself. Be nice. So he said to Kimura, “Thank you, Takuya,” not noticing the surprise on Kimura’s face at being called by his given name.  
“What’s up with Nakai-kun?” said Shingo in a low voice.  
“I guess he just got out of the wrong side of bed this morning,” muttered Tsuyoshi.  
The rehearsal resumed.  
Unused as he was to following anyone’s lead, Nakai nevertheless managed to stay relatively quiet so he could take note of how the others interacted with each other and with the staff. Lucky, too – he never would have thought to speak politely to the singing coach if he hadn’t heard the others doing so. He hated how disrespectful the other members were to him but he figured if he was going to break them in, he’d have to do it gradually.  
The song, Nakai found, wasn’t bad, although it was relentlessly cheerful; a sort of party anthem. It had possibilities, he mused during the second half of the day when they started to learn the lyrics – some of it was mildly suggestive. He was sure they could do something interesting with those during the concert. 

After rehearsal was over and he’d eaten dinner, Nakai decided he’d had enough of business and was ready for pleasure. But where to get it? Nakai had long since stopped being interested in toying with whores and rent-boys; such transitory pleasures were ultimately unfulfilling, in his opinion. It was in hurting your nearest and dearest that the real fun lay – and Nakai quite correctly deduced that this Kimura, Tsuyoshi, Shingo and Goro were nearer and dearer to their Nakai than he had ever been to his. Better and better.  
He got out his phone and dialled.  
“Tsuyoshi, what are you up to?”  
“Nothing much. Why?”  
“I’m coming over.”

Tsuyoshi’s angular features were soft in sleep – or perhaps unconsciousness, considering the long line of empty bottles glittering balefully on the kitchen counter. It had been so easy, Nakai reflected, smiling. So easy to get Tsuyoshi to drink another beer, and another. So easy to get him wild and laughing. So easy to get him to the point of inebriation where Nakai could kiss him and he just didn’t care. How serious he had grown, suddenly, when Nakai’s mouth pressed against his throat and he drew in his breath and seemed to realise that this wasn’t playing anymore. And then he had responded to Nakai’s advances with such tenderness and simplicity that Nakai had been astonished – so different from his own cold, cruel Tsuyoshi. And so he proceeded as gently as he knew how, contrary to all his instincts though it was, trying to coax this delicate Tsuyoshi into acts of greater and greater intimacy. How malleable he was… Nakai relished it.   
Having recovered from recent exertions, Nakai extricated himself from Tsuyoshi’s limp embrace and pulled on underwear and pants, pausing for a moment to get his phone out of his back pocket and snap a picture of Tsuyoshi, passed out, naked, pale liquid rapidly congealing on his smooth chest. Nakai happily imagined Tsuyoshi’s confusion upon waking, and even better, his horror when he got the email of that photo the following day. Nakai smiled at the thought as he buttoned his shirt and threw in a perfect pop-star turn as he left Tsuyoshi’s apartment, humming. He was halfway down the stairs before he realised the tune was “Dynamite”.


	7. Their Universe – Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated R (for dubious consent).

Shingo awoke to the insistent beeping of the alarm, followed by a loud THUMP and then a moan: “Owww…”  
Suddenly very awake, Shingo scrambled from his place right at the edge of the bed to the other side. “Nakai-sama! Are you alright?”  
Nakai put his hands to his head. “It didn’t work,” he groaned. “Didn’t work, didn’t work, what did I do wrong? It’s 6:22, isn’t it? Why isn’t there a portal again? Why didn’t I fall down and then up and then back into bed, alone, with nobody in it!?”  
Shingo retreated with a hurt look.  
“No – I mean – ” Nakai rested his elbows on the bed and tried to get his head around explaining, but couldn’t, and consequently gave up and stood up. “I’m getting dressed. Do you want to help me?”  
He regretted his wording ten minutes later when he had to stop Shingo from attempting to physically put the chosen outfit on his body. And as for the outfit itself – well.  
“I can’t rehearse in this! PVC makes me so sweaty, urrgh, I’ll be dancing all day… don’t I have anything more comfortable?”  
“I think that in your case,” Shingo advised, “stylish is preferable to comfortable.”  
“It’s a dance rehearsal, no one will care!”  
Shingo’s look said everything. Clearly, they _would_ care.  
Nakai was not pleased. “Mumble mumble pants too tight mumble…”

Shingo was right. None of the other members had made any concessions for comfort, and were wearing similarly impractical clothes as yesterday. Again the little line formed – “Good morning, Nakai-sama” – and the rehearsal began.  
As they learned the dance sequence, Nakai began to feel even more uncomfortable than he already was. The choreography seemed more than usually… erotic. Certainly he was no stranger to the occasional sexy dance move, and he knew there was always a great crowd reaction when they flirted with each other, but this… this was beyond the pale. And it was all centred around _him_. He’d had backup dancers running their hands down his body before, but his fellow members? It just didn’t seem appropriate. Even more disturbing were the dance sequence’s violent overtones – for example, the part where the choreography had him miming backhanding Goro across the face.  
“If you want,” said Goro, looking slyly at Nakai under his eyelashes, “you can do it for real.”  
Nakai’s heart quailed, but he managed to say “I might” in a sufficiently lordly manner, and they started the sequence over. Goro looked quite disappointed when Nakai just mimed again.  
At some points of the rehearsal he was able to enjoy his body moving in sync with the others, but then the chilling implications of it all kept returning to his mind. He had to push down his discomfort, however, as he couldn’t afford to seem different than usual. It was hard though to be nonchalant when he was supposed to be doing hip-thrusting movements and Kimura was kneeling right in front of him, cocking an eyebrow and grinning. The implications were not lost on Nakai, and he was sure they wouldn’t be lost on the audience either.  
In his own universe, he might have found it hilarious. Here, with the knowledge of the sexual power he was supposed to hold over his band-mates, it was horrifying.  
“Is this really what we want to put across?” he burst out.  
The choreographer, a thin, hard man in black, raised an eyebrow. Out of the corner of his eye, Nakai saw Shingo mouthing “wrong” urgently, so he immediately backtracked. “Forget it.”  
The others looked at Nakai curiously. He hoped they didn’t suspect anything.

At last rehearsal was officially over. The choreographer left, and the others started packing up their stuff. When Nakai turned around, Tsuyoshi had connected his chain to Goro’s collar again. Then to Nakai’s horrified fascination, Tsuyoshi pulled sharply on the chain, making Goro’s head jerk towards him. Tsuyoshi smiled cruelly, whispering something in Goro’s ear that made his cheeks redden slightly and his eyes cast down to the ground. Goro walked demurely out of the room with Tsuyoshi strolling casually after, looking for all the world like a dog and its master.  
Nakai was still staring after them in disbelief when Kimura said, “Shingo,” jerking his head in the direction of the door. Before Nakai could recover his wits to protest, Shingo had risen to his feet and left. And suddenly Kimura had him literally cornered, a hand flat against the wall on either side of Nakai’s head.  
“I’m bored,” he said. “Let’s fuck.”  
“What??” Nakai almost shrieked, panicking.  
“I said,” said Kimura, enunciating very clearly indeed and pushing his PVC-clad thigh between Nakai’s legs, “let’s… fuck.” He said this directly into Nakai’s ear before swiping it with his tongue. Nakai twitched.  
“I don’t think that’s a such a good idea…” said Nakai weakly, flattening himself against the wall in an attempt to get away but only ending up with Kimura pressed even closer to him. He became horribly aware of Kimura’s greater height and strength.  
“Do I really have to wait until tonight?” Kimura said, desire deepening his voice, his hips right up against Nakai’s and beginning, torturously, to shift.  
“No, I mean, I don’t…let’s not…uh…” Nakai tried vainly to reach for words, but confusion rendered his mind quite blank.  
Kimura’s movements suddenly stopped. Nakai held his breath, hoping wildly that Kimura had decided to respect his wishes… but he was soon disappointed.  
“Oh, so we’re doing _this_ , are we?” breathed Kimura in wonder.  
“Um… this?” repeated Nakai blankly.  
 _“This.”_ Kimura grasped Nakai’s wrists and in the next instant Nakai felt the painful impact of his wrists hitting the wall, pinned above his head by Kimura’s vice-like grip. “At last you’re admitting you _do_ want to! After all these long months of telling me you didn’t want to… switch.” Kimura leaned hard on Nakai’s wrists with his forearm, bringing the other hand down to caress the side of Nakai’s face as he kissed him passionately. Knowing there was no way in hell his other self would remain impassive to such intensity, Nakai responded. Male or not, Kimura was a devastatingly attractive human being in full seduction mode, and for a second Nakai almost began to enjoy kissing him – but then sanity reasserted itself in the form of the thought, “where the hell is this leading?” and regained most of its ground with the swiftly following “somewhere I definitely do not want to go”.  
“You’re fantastic,” Kimura purred. “ _Thank_ you – but I’d better stop being so nice. That’s not what you want, is it. Little slut.”  
Feeling Kimura’s free hand grab hold of his zipper and begin to tug, Nakai knew he had reached the point of no return – he was stretched out, trapped, and terrified, and if he didn’t do something drastic _right now_ he was about to be seriously sexually molested by someone who was and yet was not one of his closest friends. He was pretty sure he could escape Kimura’s grasp if he really tried, but even if he did it would be no use – Kimura would keep pursuing, thinking it was all part of the game… So Nakai did the only thing left available to him. He screwed his eyes shut, gathered up all the authority he could muster, and opened his eyes once more into the iciest glare he was capable of, and said, _“Stop.”_  
Kimura froze, his fingers grasping the zipper. He looked Nakai in the eye and saw nothing but cold fury.  
 _“Now,”_ said Nakai. His voice was not loud but it somehow seemed to fill the entire room.  
Kimura released him instantly, backed away, knelt, and bowed to the floor. “There is no way I can begin to apologise – ” he began formally.  
 _“Leave,”_ said Nakai.  
Kimura scrambled to his feet and fled the room.  
As soon as he was gone, Nakai crumpled to the floor, the effort of projecting that much power having left him spent, with a horrible, horrible suspicion that he’d never been more like his other self.

Nakai staggered into his room, slammed the door and leant back on it. “Arrghhh…”  
Shingo, who had been cleaning the bench-top, set the cloth down and bowed to Nakai. “Welcome back, Nakai-sama,” he said expressionlessly, and went back to cleaning.  
“What are you doing here?” snapped Nakai, who at this point wanted more than anything else to be alone.  
“I wanted to help Nakai-sama with any questions he might have about the day’s events,” said Shingo.  
“Thanks, but please… go away.”  
Shingo looked down, his wild, black hair falling over his face. He began wringing his hands, twisting them together over and over. He raised his face again, gazing at Nakai with those huge, dark eyes, and said, “I could, you know.”  
Nakai frowned. “Could what?”  
“I know how to do all sorts of things.” He extended a hand toward Nakai, his expression almost desperate. “I’ll do anything you want – ”  
“No!” shouted Nakai. “Why do you keep asking? God!”  
Shingo shrank back. His expression was piteous. “P-Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t make me go back to my room. They’ll come for me. Please don’t make me go back.”  
Nakai closed his eyes in horror. So Shingo had simply not wanted to be left alone, and thought he had to offer sexual favours for Nakai to allow him to stay?  
“You don’t have to go,” he said softly and with great tiredness. “You can stay here. And you don’t have to do anything to earn that.”  
“Thank you, Nakai-sama,” said Shingo, bowing in gratitude. “Thank you so much…”  
As Nakai got into bed that night he mumbled unhappily to himself, “This universe is wrong and gay and I want out.”

Again Nakai took some time to get to sleep and again he woke more than once to find he had the entire blanket wrapped around him. Once he shook Shingo gently by the shoulder and said softly, “There’s room, you know,” but Shingo had awoken and cringed away with such fear in his eyes that Nakai didn’t want to try waking him again.


	8. Our Universe – Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

Thirty seconds after Tsuyoshi walked into the dance rehearsal he heard his phone beep. He fished it out of his bag to see who had emailed him before he had to turn it off for the next few hours. On the screen was flashing “Nakai-kun”. Tsuyoshi frowned and glanced over to Nakai, but he was talking to Kimura. Why would Nakai email him when they were in the same room? He opened the attachment.  
Having been fabulously drunk last night, Tsuyoshi had been wondering for most of the morning what had happened and, considering his state upon waking, who exactly he had slept with. Now he stared at the photo of himself, aghast, unable at first to process what it meant. He had very little memory of the night’s events, save that… he’d been drinking with Nakai at a bar… no, at his apartment. Nakai had come over, and they’d been drinking… and… then what?  
Tsuyoshi looked at the picture of himself with a growing sense of dread. If he’d slept with a girl last night, then why had Nakai been there afterwards to take this extremely incriminating photograph? Did he think this was funny? Had Nakai and himself _both_ had a girl there? Oh, no… had they both slept with the _same girl?_   
Or… hang on. Was there a girl there at all?  
 _Shit._  
The fragments of memory that were clinking back into Tsuyoshi’s head strongly suggested that there hadn’t been. Tsuyoshi looked at Nakai, who was across the room talking casually to Kimura and looking not at all like a person who had just sent a most extraordinary and frightening photograph to a friend. What did he mean by this?   
If he was trying to be funny, why wasn’t he pointing and laughing right now? (Nakai’s sense of humour was not exactly notable for its subtlety.) If he was trying to scare Tsuyoshi, why was he behaving as if everything was completely normal? Since when did Nakai like guys? Since when did Tsuyoshi?? _What the hell was going on?_  
Just then, Shingo skipped in, slinging his bag into a corner cheerfully. “Morning!” he said. And then, to Tsuyoshi with a cheeky grin: “Do you think Nakai-kun’s managed to learn the tune yet?”   
Tsuyoshi said nothing, turning off his phone hastily and stuffing it into his bag. He wasn’t going to be joking around with Shingo today.

The choreography was pissing Nakai off. It was so cheesy – one more cute V-sign and he was going to vomit. So he started outlining a revised, less cutesy version to the others – only to be almost immediately interrupted.  
“I’m sorry Nakai-kun, but we can’t change that whole section,” said the choreographer.   
“And why not?” Nakai demanded, outraged that even choreographer called him Nakai-kun.  
“We’ve already learnt it the other way,” said Kimura, sounding irritated.  
Nakai took a step closer to him and stared him in the eye. “Are you telling me what I can and can’t do?”  
Kimura didn’t back away. His eyes flashed with anger. “What the hell is wrong with you today?”  
The others stared, half-agreeing with Kimura but taken aback at the way he rose to the confrontation.  
“Oh, so now there’s something wrong with me?” Nakai knew he shouldn’t be making a scene by acting unusually, but he had reacted instinctively – and so, apparently, had Kimura… which made Nakai want to test a theory.  
“Why can’t we do this the way we’re supposed to?” Kimura demanded.  
“Why can’t we do it the way I want?”  
Kimura was so close to Nakai that they almost stood nose to nose. “We can’t always get what we want.”   
A part of Nakai really, really wanted to wrestle Kimura to the ground and thoroughly molest him, but that would definitely give him away. So, after a pregnant pause, Nakai suddenly smiled, releasing the tension in the room. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.”  
Nakai carefully noted the way Kimura blinked at the double entendre, slapped him on the back in a friendly manner, and though the mood remained uneasy the rest of the morning’s rehearsal proceeded without major incident.

Tsuyoshi was walking out of rehearsal to get himself some lunch when he found himself being headed off by Nakai.   
“I have something to tell you,” said Nakai, grasping Tsuyoshi by the shoulders and steering him into a small, unused rehearsal room. His face was deadly serious.  
Tsuyoshi nearly panicked. “He’s going to want to talk about last night,” he thought. “Oh no oh no oh – ”  
“Takuya is thinking of leaving SMAP.”   
The world inside Tsuyoshi’s head flipped over. “What??”  
Nakai’s face was all urgency. “I overheard him talking to Goro – something about an offer. He was saying he might be going to take it.”  
“What does _that_ mean, ‘had an offer’?”  
“I don’t know!” said Nakai, feigning anger and confusion. “But it doesn’t sound too good, does it?”  
Tsuyoshi was utterly bewildered. On the one hand, Nakai sending him that photo… on the other, this terrible news… “But surely he wouldn’t… surely…”  
Nakai shrugged. “Maybe not. But he’s pretty… independent already. Wouldn’t you say?”  
Tsuyoshi bit his lips closed. He agreed, but he didn’t want to say it.  
“What are we going to do?” implored Nakai.  
Tsuyoshi was floored. So Nakai wanted him to help? Tsuyoshi started to speak, not even knowing what the end of the sentence was going to be: “We… have to… stop him.”  
Nakai nodded in emphatic agreement. “You’re absolutely right. How are we going to stop him leaving?”  
“Uh… we tell him not to?”  
“We can’t talk to him about it!” chided Nakai. “We’re not even supposed to know! He’ll be angry.”  
Tsuyoshi was a bit scared of angry Kimura. “We could be really really nice to him and tell him how good it is to have him in the band.”   
Nakai just looked at him as if he was stupid.   
“Well, it might help!”  
“What about Goro? You could talk to him, try to get him to convince Kimura not to leave.”  
“Yeah… he might listen to me,” said Tsuyoshi, thinking that Goro would be more likely to listen to himself than to Nakai. “Okay, I’ll talk to him. I’ll tell you how it goes soon, okay?”  
Nakai smiled. “I knew I could count on you.”  
Then he did something that yanked Tsuyoshi out of the illusion that their relationship was back to normal. He embraced Tsuyoshi, not like a friend would – around the shoulders, strong and quick – but like a lover. With one hand curling around Tsuyoshi’s waist and the other sliding up his neck to his hair…  
Tsuyoshi froze.   
Nakai allowed himself a moment of pleasure at Tsuyoshi’s discomfort before pulling away. “Later,” he said casually, and left.  
Tsuyoshi stared after him, his stomach turning over. It seemed as if now Nakai expected something of him…

After the afternoon’s rehearsal was over, Tsuyoshi took a leaf out of Nakai’s book and took Goro aside into the same unused rehearsal room.  
“Goro-chan… you have to convince Kimura-kun not to leave SMAP.”  
Goro stared. “What?”  
“I said, you have to convince – ”  
“I heard what you said. I just couldn’t believe that’s what you were really asking. Why would you think Kimura-kun is planning to leave?”  
Tsuyoshi sighed. “Don’t act so surprised, I know he was talking to you about it.”   
Goro shook his head in flat denial. “He hasn’t said a thing to me.”  
Tsuyoshi was getting frustrated. “This is important, Goro-chan, you’re the only one he’s trusted enough to tell, so you have to say something to him!”   
Goro was equally frustrated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”  
“Come off it, Goro-chan! You were… heard.”  
“What is this, a spy drama?” said Goro, looking amused. “Give me a break.”  
Tsuyoshi narrowed his eyes but lapsed into silence, having come to the erroneous conclusion that Goro cared more about protecting Kimura’s secret than telling Tsuyoshi the truth. He texted Nakai to say Goro had been extremely uncooperative and ask what they should do next, but there was no response.  
If this didn’t start making sense by tomorrow, Tsuyoshi decided, he would talk to Shingo. Surely he’d know what to do.


	9. Our Universe – Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

Nakai was a little concerned that he had no leads on how had gotten to this other Nakai’s world and how to get back to his own. There were so many things wrong with the place – the lack of respect, both for hierarchy in general and for Nakai personally; a relatively uncorrupted media, capable of reporting the misdeeds of those in the entertainment world; and of course the clothes. (Nakai looked down at his cut-off jeans and flannel shirt with resentment.) The clothes were horrendous.  
On the other hand, he was starting to get a handle on his fellow members’ personalities, and was starting to enjoy planning ways to manipulate them. In particular he was preoccupied with what he was going to do to Shingo…

“Do you want to have a drink up on the roof?”  
“What roof?”  
“The roof of my apartment,” said Nakai, hoping it was still accessible in this universe. “It’s good up there.”  
Shingo appeared surprised, but smiled. “Okay.”

Despite the building’s different design, the view at night was just as brilliant as Nakai remembered it. Passing a beer back and forth, infinitely companionable, Nakai and Shingo looked out at the twinkling lights of the buildings, serving for the stars that were so faint in the city. The tiny people rushing across the crossing below looked like ants on their mysterious errands.  
The conversation was infrequent but friendly, the two of them gradually relaxing and thawing from the stresses of the day. They spoke of inconsequential things until Nakai judged Shingo to be relaxed enough to talk honestly about more… _interesting_ topics.  
“Are you still seeing that girl?” asked Nakai casually.  
Shingo was puzzled. “What girl?”  
Damn, bad guess. “You know, that girl,” he hazarded. “A while ago.”  
“You mean Yukiko? That was nearly six months ago!”  
Nakai shrugged and tried to look embarrassed. “Well, I haven’t really been paying attention properly.”  
“Baka.”  
Nakai hid his anger in a laugh. “What happened to her, anyway?”  
“Oh, it didn’t work out.”  
“How come?”  
Shingo thought for a moment, then smiled and shrugged. “I forget… funny how it seems so important at the time, then a few months later you have no idea what broke you up. I was upset at the time.”  
“And now?”  
“Over it.”  
“Looking?”  
“Mm… not sure…” He leaned back in his chair, looking at the sky. “Truth is, Nakai-kun, sometimes I wish I had a serious girlfriend. You know, I see Kimura with Shizuka and the kids and I go… when is that going to happened to me?” Shingo laughed. “Maybe I’m just incapable of serious commitment.”  
“You’ve been in SMAP for nearly twenty years now,” Nakai pointed out.  
Shingo stared. “You see that as commitment? That’s just… my life. I would never leave SMAP.”  
“Like Kimura would never leave Shizuka,” said Nakai, hoping the analogy held.  
By Shingo’s wonder-filled face, it appeared to. “So that’s… commitment?” he said.  
“Sure,” said Nakai with a smile. “I believe in it too. SMAP, together forever, right?” He held out his hand.  
Shingo grasped it tightly. “Right!”  
They sat back happily and sipped their beer. And then Nakai said, “Don’t you think it seems like we’re already married sometimes? The five of us…”  
Shingo chuckled. “We spend so much time together, and so much of it arguing….”  
“Despite how much we care about each other,” put in Nakai.  
“Yeah. And we’ll be together forever. You’re right! Except we’ve, like, been married for ages and don’t have sex anymore.”  
“Exactly!”  
“Never mind that we never did in the first place. A marriage of convenience! An arranged marriage, no less, brokered by Johnny the matchmaker…”  
They collapsed into hysterics.  
“Yes, yes,” said Nakai, wiping away non-existent tears of mirth, “do you still love me Shingo? Or have you forgotten how you felt when you married me?” This he inquired in tones of exaggerated, breathless desperation, grasping Shingo by the shoulders and looking him melodramatically in the eye.  
“Of course I still love you,” intoned Shingo in a deep voice. “Just as much as the first day I saw you – wearing that hat…” He collapsed against Nakai with laughter. And their chests shook together in silent mirth, until their laughter finally subsided and Nakai lifted his head and smiled his most adoring, heart-melting smile and angled to the side as he moved in to –  
“What are you doing?” Shingo said, jerking away.  
“What?”  
“You’re moving towards me in a suspicious way. What is that?”  
“It was – nothing – I – ” Nakai pretended to struggle with words while he rapidly rethought his plan, and then mumbled, “I… wastryingtokissyou.”  
“You were _what_??”  
This time very loudly and clearly: “I was trying to kiss you!”  
“Shh!” Shingo looked around frantically for possible listeners.  
“ ‘Speak up’, ‘be quiet’! You’re very inconsistent, Shingo.”  
“Says the guy who tried to kiss me and insult me in the same thirty seconds!”  
“I _love_ you!”  
“Eh??”  
“I LOVE you.”  
“No way!”  
“It’s true.”  
“Can’t be.”  
“Is.”  
“Since when??”  
“Since ages!” Nakai knew he was going to have to improvise here, so he took a deep breath and went for it. “You remember the last concert we did in 2002? The very last one. And we were making a big deal to the audience about how it was going to be our last concert of the year and everything… I always end up kind of reflective after last concerts, taking stock of things, thinking back over the past year. I just kept looking at everybody during the concert and thinking of how far we’d come and how much we’d changed. And I’d just had my birthday and that made me even more thoughtful, thinking – how did I get to be grown up? We were _all_ grown up. I remembered joking about it at your birthday earlier in the year, 25, quarter of a century and all that, but I really hadn’t thought about it properly. It was only after I turned 30 that it really sunk in… that because I’d been seeing you every day, I hadn’t noticed you growing up and becoming… amazing.”  
Shingo’s face was a picture of incredulity. “FIVE YEARS??”  
“Not constantly!” Nakai defended himself. “Just… now and then. Most of the time I wasn’t bothered by it, but every so often I’d just think about you and…” He shrugged helplessly.  
“Nakai-kun… this is – this is very strange.” Shingo clearly didn’t know how to take all of this.  
“I know.”  
Shingo’s face was very troubled. “I don’t know what to say to you…”  
“I know! You don’t have to say anything. I’m going to go now and leave you a bit of time to think about all of this and come to terms with it. And… um… just try to forget all of this at rehearsal and the concert and I’ll talk to you tomorrow night, okay?”  
Shingo nodded slowly. “Okay.”


	10. Their Universe – Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG-13.

BEEP – BEEP – BEEP –   
_Thump._  
“Owww…”  
Nakai looked up from the floor to Shingo’s concerned face above him and shrugged. “Thought it was worth a try.”

Nakai picked himself up off the floor and took some clothes with him (he usually threw clothes on the floor and besides, it saved him from having to look in the closet). He was far too tired and pissed off with this universe to devote effort to something like, oh, wearing different clothes to yesterday.  
Having dressed, he turned around only to see Shingo hadn’t quite gotten as far. He was just doing up his pants, his back to Nakai…  
…and without his shirt on, a criss-cross of marks were visible on Shingo’s back, the fresh and livid overlaying scar tissue.  
Nakai actually scooted all the way across the bed to the other side, landing beside Shingo with a thud. “What the hell are these?!” he demanded.  
Shingo turned to him, his brow furrowed, uncomprehending.  
Now that Nakai could see the front of him he could also see the bruises, on his ribs, his throat, and what looked like burn marks scattering his chest.   
“Who did this to you?” Nakai whispered, taking hold of both Shingo’s shoulders.  
Shingo was quiet for a moment, and then answered. “You did.”  
Nakai let go of him as if stung.   
“You, and the others.”  
“I would never…” Nakai’s throat felt thick. He almost couldn’t speak. “I would never do anything like that to you.”  
Shingo’s face twisted in incomprehension. “You wouldn’t?”  
Nakai sat down on the bed. His mind was whirling. Up until now, he had thought of this person as just a freakish and wrong version of Shingo in a freakish and wrong variation of reality as he knew it. In a rush, it hit Nakai: this Shingo was a real person too, with a real life. And he had been living with this kind of abuse since childhood.   
Nakai put his face in his hands and found to his disbelief that it was wet with tears. How can I be crying? he thought. I never cry…  
Shingo was thrown. “Nakai-sama – what’s wrong?”  
“What’s wrong?? _You’re_ wrong! _They’re_ wrong! This whole universe is wrong!”  
Carefully, at a safe distance, Shingo sat down on the bed too. “I’m sorry if I’m doing anything wrong,” he said. “If you tell me how, I can try to be like your other Shingo.”  
This was even more upsetting. “No! That’s not what I mean,” he said, his voice hitching. “How can they do such things to you…”  
Confusion and amazement passed across Shingo’s face. “You’re crying… for _me_?”  
“Yes!” exclaimed Nakai. “You’re – you’re daily struck, ordered about, used, abused! Isn’t that worth crying for? Can’t you see it shouldn’t be this way?”  
Shingo just looked troubled. “It’s always been like this.”  
Nakai squeezed his eyes shut, hating the tears. “I would never do such things to you,” he said again.  
“Well… but… what about the others? In your world.” Shingo was biting his lip, wanting to believe in this idea but as yet unable to. “Do they… not hurt me, too?”  
“Nobody hurts you.”  
Shingo looked up as if the world Nakai spoke of lay in the heavens. “Is there really such a place?” he whispered.  
“Where I come from,” said Nakai bitterly, “you’re _happy_.”  
“Happy…” murmured Shingo, almost as if he didn’t know the meaning of the word.  
“You can’t keep putting up with this kind of treatment,” said Nakai with growing urgency. “You have to get out.”  
Shingo shook his head. “I can’t just leave, I’d be breaking my contract.”  
“We’ll find a way. We have to!”  
But Shingo said, simply, “How?”  
Nakai stared. “What?”  
“How could we get out of here?”  
Nakai paused for a moment, then said, “Can’t we just pack our bags and drive away?”  
“They’ll follow us.”  
“We’ll lose them.”  
“They know the number plate of the car.”  
“We’ll sell it and buy a new one.”  
“But – everybody knows who we are!” said Shingo, almost angry but trying to hide it. “They’d put out an alert, pretend it was a big game or something, a publicity stunt. ‘Where in the world are Shingo and Nakai?’ Thanks to our fans we’d be back here in no time.”  
“People in other countries don’t know who we are,” pointed out Nakai. “We could go overseas!”  
“We’d definitely be recognised at the airport.”  
“We’ll wear disguises! You can be a woman, I’ll have a moustache!”  
It was a suggestion that his usual Shingo would have laughed at and maybe even gone along with, but this Shingo just looked utterly woebegone.   
Nakai was instantly guilty. “I’m sorry, I know this is serious. It’s just… joking around, well, it kind of… makes me feel better, I guess.”  
“I see,” said Shingo, his face still troubled. He didn’t look as though he did.  
Then he began to tremble. “The trouble we’d be in if we got caught…”   
“We have to try,” insisted Nakai. “Even if it’ll be difficult and complicated, even if we’ll be punished if we get caught, even if I lose my leadership over it – even if,” and here he swallowed, “even if, in leaving the compound, I miss my chance of getting back to my world. I have to get you out of here – no matter what.” Nakai took Shingo by the shoulders again and looked into his eyes. “Shingo,” he said, “they will never hurt you again.”


	11. Their Universe – Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG-13 (for implied self-harm).

Although he could have used the time alone, when Nakai discovered that he had a dressing room to himself and the other four shared one he immediately dragged Shingo into his, reluctant to leave him to their tender mercies.   
As they finished changing, something about Shingo caught Nakai’s attention out of the corner of his eye. He let his gaze settle fully on Shingo – and realised that what was really bothering him, apart from all the injuries, was how painfully thin Shingo was. Not even thin like he had been as a teenager, either – bone-thin. Fear-thin. It was chilling.  
Shingo was just pushing the sleeves of his sweater down when Nakai caught sight of something on Shingo’s arm. “Hey – ” Nakai grabbed his wrist, but immediately loosened his grip when he saw how scared Shingo was. “No – hey. I just want to look at something for a second.”  
He gently rolled Shingo’s sleeve back up and tried to remain calm as he inspected the two thin, red lines forming an X on Shingo’s inner forearm. “That looks… new.”  
Shingo nodded. “Yesterday.”  
Nakai breathed in sharply. A wave of nausea hit him. “Did – did you do it?”  
Shingo looked down. “I did as I was told.”  
The feeling of sickness whirled up into an anger that rendered him almost inarticulate. “Who – why?”  
“I looked at Goro-sama disrespectfully. He punished me.”  
Yesterday? When could it have been yesterday? Shingo had been with Nakai nearly the whole time… except…   
Except when he had been with Kimura.  
No wonder Shingo had been so desperate to stay under Nakai’s protection last night.  
“Shingo,” said Nakai intensely, holding Shingo by the shoulders. “When you get back to the concert, go straight to my room. Don’t go to your room, don’t go to the common area – I don’t want them to have a chance to get to you. Go straight to my room. Okay?”  
Shingo nodded, a small smile briefly brightening his face. “Okay.”  
The idea of Goro immediately seizing his chance to inflict such cruelty on Shingo made Nakai’s blood boil. He kept thinking about it the entire time they were waiting backstage to go on, so that when the concert finally started Nakai threw himself into the routine, trying to expel some anger through physical exertion and letting his kinetic memory take over. Every accursed choreographed caress made him more and more furious, until finally the part came where he was supposed to backhand Goro.  
And he did it.  
He struck Goro full across the face.  
He had a brief glimpse of Goro staggering slightly, but didn’t see his face before he’d done the turn and was into the next sequence and, fuck it, he had to dance it to the end now and who cared whether Goro was okay or not. After what he’d done to Shingo _he deserved it_.  
It was only after he’d stepped offstage that he realised he’d done something violent and believed it was right.   
He walked slowly back to his dressing room in a daze… only to find that Goro was already there, kneeling in a full formal bow, his forehead on the floor.  
“What are you doing here?” he said coldly, trying to slip back into character.  
Goro raised his head. “I know there could be no possible way of excusing my interruption,” he murmured, “but I was just wondering whether Nakai-sama would be so good as to let me know exactly what it was I did wrong.”  
“…Wrong?” repeated Nakai, trying to buy himself time. Something about Goro’s expression was ringing alarm bells.  
“Yes. I would like very much to know what I did to make Nakai-sama decide to punish me…” Goro tilted his head slightly, and smiled an odd little smile. “…So that I can do it again.”  
Too late, Nakai recognised the expression as veiled arousal and had to use all his willpower to stop himself from backing away when Goro raised himself up to a full kneeling position and slowly, horribly audibly, unzipped his top… all the way down.  
Unable to conceive the audacity of the man, Nakai was suffused with rage once more and found his arm raised to strike – Goro flinched, awaiting the blow – Nakai froze.  
Goro was looking up at him, his pale face alive with anticipation.  
“No,” Nakai said at last, letting his arm relax. “No, I’m not going to hit you again. Much as I’d enjoy it,” he improvised brilliantly, “so would you. Which is counterproductive to the idea of punishment. Therefore your punishment today is to be… lack of punishment. As that will disappoint you the most.” Nakai smiled. “Goodbye.” And with that, he walked to corner where he’d left his stuff and started sorting his clothes out. After a few minutes he turned around to see Goro standing and staring uncertainly.   
Nakai gave him a scornful glance. “Oh – are you still here?”  
Hastily, Goro left.


	12. Their Universe – Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

When Nakai got back to the compound he stormed straight to his room to find Shingo already there. He slammed the door shut. Shingo jumped.   
Nakai slipped off his shoes and walked haltingly into the room. “I hit him,” he said.  
Shingo began to back away, trembling.  
“I hit him,” Nakai repeated, his eyes wide. “I was thinking about what he made you do, and I went – ”   
Nakai made a wild swing through the air. Shingo flinched – then slowly straightened up, processing what Nakai had just said and what it meant.  
Nakai saw realisation in Shingo’s eyes but didn’t get it. “What?”  
“I thought – ” said Shingo, “I thought – ”  
Oh. Right. Nakai got it now. “That I did it for kicks.”  
Shingo looked down. “Yeah.”  
“I feel awful about it,” said Nakai, looking Shingo in the eye with raw and painful honesty. “I still think he deserved it. But I wish I hadn’t done it.”  
Slowly, Shingo nodded. Some of the tension visible in his shoulders eased, and his face smoothed out a fraction.   
Nakai felt a rush of relief at having regained some of Shingo’s trust. “Shingo,” he said, “we have got to get out of here. Before I turn into something like _them_.”  
“We’d never make it,” Shingo said.  
“There must be a way,” said Nakai, beginning to pace. “It can’t be that hard…”  
“I have tried before,” said Shingo softly.  
Nakai stopped. Looked. “When?”   
“The first time when I was ten. I’d only been here a few months, but… that was enough. I didn’t want to spend another moment here. So I tried making a run for it.” Shingo lapsed into silence.  
Concerned, Nakai asked, “What happened?”  
“They caught me ten minutes later, asking strangers for hundred yen coins outside the station. I had no money for the train fare. The security people dragged me into their white van, I was screaming and struggling…” Shingo looked a little scornful of his younger self – as if screaming and struggling would do any good. “And when I got back, the punishment was…” Shingo shuddered. “…Worse than anything they’d done before.”  
Nakai was horrified, trying not to imagine what could be done to punish a ten-year-old boy.   
Then he remembered something Shingo had said earlier. “But – you tried again?”  
“Yes,” said Shingo, his face tired and pinched with the painful memories. “Once.  
I knew that one of the things which regularly came in and out of the compound were the garbage bins, so I hid in one of those on garbage day and waited. I was fifteen, but still quite small, so I sort of fit. It was a long wait, but finally the bin got wheeled out. As soon as the sound of footsteps gone was I climbed out and ran… This time I’d thought ahead and earned myself some money beforehand…”  
“You mean, your pay from Johnny’s Jimusho?”  
Shingo stared. “Juniors get paid where you come from?”  
Nakai was affronted. “Of course they do! They work, just like the adults.”  
“Oh. Well, here you only get paid in real money after you turn twenty. Before that your salary pays for your food and board and the rest you get in coupons.”  
“So you couldn’t have legitimately got five hundred yen for a train fare.”  
“Right.”  
“So how did you get it?” asked Nakai.  
Shingo looked down shamefully, his shoulders hunching forward.  
“You don’t have to answer that,” amended Nakai. “So, um, you got the train home?”  
“Yeah,” said Shingo. “I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten that far – I still can’t – but when I went in…” Shingo stopped, a spasm of pain passing across his face.  
Nakai, for once, waited and was silent.  
At last Shingo got himself together enough to continue. “I knocked at the door. It opened. My mother was standing there. ‘I’m home,’ I said, and – just – threw myself at her, hugged her, feeling like the child I’d been before I left. But… she did nothing.”  
Nakai was nonplussed. “What do you mean, nothing?”  
“She just stood there, rigid. She didn’t hug me like she used to when I was little. She just stood very, very still. I heard my father’s voice saying, ‘Who is it?’ And she said took me by the shoulders and kind of moved me away from her and said, in this strange voice, she sounded so nervous – ‘It’s Shingo.’  
“A few seconds later my father appeared at the door. ‘Welcome home,’ he said, but his expression was all strange, I couldn’t work out why he wasn’t happy to see me… Anyway I went in. My mother put the kettle on and we sat down at the kitchen table while Dad went into the next room. As I spoke to her I was half aware that he was making a phone call but I didn’t really give it any thought… I was telling my mother how horrible it had been there and how glad I was to be home, and she was just listening, or she wasn’t saying much anyhow so I thought she was listening. Dad came back and stood in the doorway, looking at us. She looked over to him, and their expressions as they looked at each other were so strange that I had to ask, ‘What’s wrong? What is it?’  
“Then the doorbell rang.”  
Shingo was silent for a minute, the flood of words temporarily running dry. Nakai waited tensely.  
“It was them,” Shingo whispered, his voice choked up. “The Jimusho people. They dragged me out the door and down the stairs and into the white van and all the time I was shouting to my parents, shouting for them to help me, save me… and they just stood there and did nothing.” Shingo pulled his hair over his face and pushed it back again, a nervous mannerism. “What they did to me when I got back made the previous time’s punishment seem like a walk in the park, and this time I didn’t struggle. I didn’t fight it. I had nothing to fight for.”

Shingo’s eyes met Nakai’s, a burning glance that contained twenty years of pain and humiliation. And Nakai realised that the moment Shingo had just told him about had been the moment Shingo gave up – the moment he had lost the ability to stand up for himself and the belief that it was worth trying to do so. 

Nakai opened his mouth to speak and, agonisingly, was unable to. He desperately wanted to say something to make it better, something that would in some way comfort Shingo or at least show that Nakai understood or sympathised or empathised or whatever, but everything that came to mind sounded trite and empty and emotion flooded up in Nakai and propelled him forwards to throw his arms around Shingo and hold him close. It was only a second later that he felt strange about the idea that he was actually embracing Shingo, and wondered whether this was incredibly inappropriate considering Shingo seemed to believe he had some kind of sexual obligation to Nakai. But Shingo was clutching tightly at his shoulders and heaving in trying-not-to-cry breaths and every instinct told Nakai this was the only way to comfort him. And Nakai, conversely, felt comforted too.

“I know it seems impossible,” said Nakai, “getting away from here, I mean. But we have to keep thinking about it – keep going over the possibilities – because I can’t let you stay here. Not when they do such horrible things to you. And anyway I can’t stand it here myself. We have to keep thinking…”  
“What’s the point?” said Shingo softly.  
“At least it might make us feel better,” said Nakai. “If only for a little while. Come on,” he said, disengaging from Shingo and tucking a piece of stray hair behind Shingo’s ear. “Let’s talk about where we’re going to run away to.”  
Shingo sighed, and said with a sad smile, “How about outer space?”  
Nakai grinned, choosing to take this as humour rather than cynicism. “Now you’re talking! We can have our own little spaceship, just you and me. We’ll eat space biscuits and walk on the ceiling.”  
Shingo smiled despite himself.  
“But what about on Earth, though? Where on Earth would you like to live, if you could live anywhere outside of Japan?”  
Shingo thought for a moment, imagination lighting up his eyes and smoothing the lines of worry on his face. “America?”  
“Yeah!” said Nakai with enthusiasm, clasping Shingo’s hands tightly, wanting desperately to comfort him. “Let’s go to America. Hamburgers, baseball… sexy girls… it’d be great!”  
“I can be your interpreter,” said Shingo, smiling.   
“Ehh, I’ve seen you try to speak English, you can’t have a conversation,” said Nakai disparagingly – then instantly regretted it upon seeing Shingo’s face fall. “I mean, no, I’m talking about the _other_ Shingo, he’s terrible at English! I’m sure you’re excellent. Go on, say something for me.”  
Shingo still looked unhappy. “What should I say?”  
“I don’t know, say… ‘excuse me, but could I have another glass of champagne? This one isn’t quite the right temperature. And turn down the music, I dislike it intensely.’”  
With barely a pause, Shingo took a deep breath and rattled off in a calm and expressionless voice several long sentences that Nakai couldn’t understand at all but was nevertheless convinced was perfect English.  
“Oh my god. You really _could_ be my interpreter! Your English really is excellent!”  
Shingo flushed at the praise, embarrassed but unmistakably pleased.  
“Right! Then it’s settled, we’re going to the U S of A!”  
“Isn’t…” Shingo stopped, nervous.   
Nakai frowned. “Isn’t what?”  
“Isn’t America a bit… obvious? I don’t know, I’m sure Nakai-sama knows best, but…”  
Nakai sighed. “You’re right. We should try somewhere more obscure. Do you speak any other languages?”  
Shingo shook his head glumly. “No, Nakai-sama.”  
“Then we’ll have to stick to English-speaking ones, and stop calling me that. What is there – America, England, um… Canada…”  
“Australia,” put in Shingo, “New Zealand.”  
“New Zealand?” said Nakai. “Where’s that?” And then: “We should definitely go there because I don’t know where it is.”  
“It’s near Australia,” said Shingo helpfully.   
“Oh, right. So, we’ll go to New Zealand.”  
The smile slowly faded from Shingo’s face. “But we can’t.”  
“You think I’m only messing around, don’t you,” said Nakai, his face growing serious too.  
“Well – I...” Shingo didn’t know what to say.  
“I’m serious,” Nakai said. “I really do want to go to – where was it again?”  
“New Zealand.”  
“I really do want to go to New Zealand with you! If only we can find a way to get out without being caught. The thing is,” said Nakai, his mind whirring, “we have to arrange to escape without anybody knowing…” He snapped his fingers. “A private jet!” But then – “No… you still have to go through the official channels, show your passport, there’d be records.” Nakai groaned. “We’d have to get fake IDs or, or get smuggled out somehow…” He sighed. It seemed impossible. “Surely the other me has connections in high places. Isn’t there anybody who might be able to help us?”  
Shingo’s face showed pure surprise at this new thought. Then he said, “Well, there is that yakuza guy…”

 

The yakuza guy, it turned out, owed Nakai a favour (though what his counterpart had done for the yakuza Nakai hated to think). Having located the man’s number – with a little help from Shingo in first locating his address book – Nakai was going to just make the call on his mobile, before Shingo gently suggested that a public phone might be more anonymous and less traceable.   
“But – are you really going to call him, Nakai-sama?” Shingo seemed very anxious about the possibility.  
“Shingo,” said Nakai, “I’d try anything to get us out.”  
Nakai followed Shingo’s advice and skulked around the back streets until he found a suitably obscure public phone on which to make the call.   
Nakai pulled his cap down over his eyes and entered the phone box, trying not to look conspicuous even though there was no one in sight. He got his address book out of his pocket, fed some coins in the machine, peered at the number, and dialled.  
Despite his bravado to Shingo, Nakai was worried he could get in a lot of trouble calling in favours from the yakuza – but he had underestimated the power his counterpart had. It was frightening. Within fifteen minutes of beginning the phone conversation he’d organised a car to the airport, fake IDs, two bank accounts under their new names, and one-way tickets on a private jet to Auckland. He didn’t know how it was going to happen and he didn’t want to know.   
“Then after this, we’re square,” came the low, scratchy voice on the other end.  
“That’s right,” said Nakai, sounding much more confident than he was. “And there’s to be no records of this?”  
“None.”  
“And if I ask you about this again?”  
“I’ll act like we never had this conversation.”  
Nakai smiled. “Good man.”


	13. Their Universe – Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG-13.

Nakai re-entered the compound with some trepidation, concerned that someone might have noticed his absence and judged it suspicious. So when he ran into Tsuyoshi in the corridor he was quite jittery – but Tsuyoshi, it soon became clear, had other things on his mind.  
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, with a hard glitter in his eye. “If Nakai-sama and Kimura-sama would care to join me in my rooms, I have a little something planned out. We can tie up Goro and then we’ll all j– ”  
“What about Shingo?” Nakai had been madly trying to think of something to interrupt with so he didn’t have to hear Tsuyoshi’s idea, and that was the first thing that came to mind.  
“This is about humiliating Goro,” said Tsuyoshi silkily. “Shingo will stay in his room. Alone.”  
“Not tonight,” said Nakai shortly, and walked off. One good thing about being an autocratic leader, he reflected, was one never had to explain oneself.

Nakai entered his room with a sense of relief – finally, an escape from the cruel world outside. His brain was buzzing with a thousand thoughts and fears; he hoped that a good night’s sleep would help.  
Unfortunately, there were two semi-naked boys chained to his bed.  
One had a pointed chin, sharp features and tiny black shorts; the other had had pouting lips, fishnets and knee-high boots. Both looked to be in their early twenties. Although Nakai was sure he knew their faces very well, they had appeared so out of context that for the moment their names completely escaped him.  
“Konban wa, Nakai-sama,” they chorused. “Kimura-sama sends his regards.”  
Nakai, who had frozen in his tracks, began to move again warily, pretending he was not incredibly disturbed by this turn of events. “Are you… a gift?” he asked incredulously.  
“Of course we are,” said Pointy with a charming smile.  
“To do with as you will,” said Pouty, wriggling enticingly.  
Nakai put his hand to his forehead in despair. This was Kimura’s idea of a make-up present? And who were they, anyway? He was sure their hair was not as it usually was, which made things more difficult, but he knew it would come to him in a minute…  
Just then there was a knock at the door. Oh, no – the last thing he needed was for one of the other members to come in and want to join in or something equally frightening… “Who is it?” Nakai called.  
“Shingo,” came the answer.  
“Oh thank god.” Nakai let him in and pointed to the bed. “Could you get rid of these?”  
A call to the staff and Shingo had it all under control, while Nakai tried to look cool and as if he turned down nubile pop stars every day.  
Pop stars! That’s who they were, Nakai thought, clicking his fingers in satisfaction as the two boys were led out (looking unfazed at having been rejected). Kamenashi Kazuya and Akanishi Jin.

At last Nakai was alone with Shingo. “It worked!” Nakai said. “Shingo – we’re going to New Zealand!”  
Shingo’s whole face lit up. Seeing that, Nakai had to give him an enormous hug. “Isn’t it great? We can escape at last!”  
Nakai felt Shingo drawing in on himself, and moved out to arms length. “What? What’s wrong?”  
“Nakai-sama,” said Shingo nervously, “Nakai-sama – I’m scared.”  
Nakai squeezed his hand in sympathy. “Scared?”  
“Scared of all the things that could go wrong. What if the yakuza are setting a trap? What if we’re followed? What if the Jimusho catches us before we even get out the door?”  
“I know,” said Nakai quietly, “I know it’s dangerous. I know it’s not the best plan in the world. But it’s the best I could manage, okay?”  
Shingo shook his head in shame. “I wasn’t trying to criticise your plan! It’s a _good_ plan. I’m just... scared.”  
Nakai looked down, and mumbled, “So am I.”  
Shingo regarded him in surprise. “You are?”  
“Of course I am – this whole damn universe is terrifying!”  
Shingo smiled a small smile. “I didn’t think Nakai-sama was afraid of anything.”  
“Nakai-kun.”  
“Nakai-...k-kun.”  
“Nakai-kun,” said Nakai conspiratorially, “is afraid of a great many things.”  
“Like... what will happen when we get to New Zealand? _If_ we get to New Zealand.”  
Nakai smiled. “No,” he said. “For some reason I’m not too worried about that. Once we get there, I reckon we’ll be okay.” He sighed. “One more day, Shingo. Just one more day to go.”  
Nakai could see doubt on Shingo’s face, but he could see hope as well. So that was okay.  
“Anyway,” Nakai said, rallying, “there’s not much we can do right now but wait. And I don’t know about you, but I could really use some relaxation right now. TV?”  
Shingo smiled. “Okay.”

Nakai had been hoping to lose himself in mindless entertainment when he turned on the television, but then they saw a segment on an entertainment news program about Morning Musume’s line-up changing again because one of its members had been executed according to popular vote, and Nakai had to turn it off.

There was nothing more that he could do; he had to just go to bed and try to sleep.  
Then Nakai remembered his guilt about the previous nights, and decided. Okay. Now was the time.  
“Shingo,” he began seriously, “I’m going to, um, suggest something. But I want you to promise you’ll say no if that’s what you want to say – _please_ don’t just do what you think you’re supposed to do, okay? Do you promise?”  
Shingo looked scared, but nodded. “I promise.”  
Nakai took a deep breath. “Okay. This is the thing: every night, we go to sleep on the opposite sides of the bed. Awkwardly. Which is normal, because we’re friends and we’re men and that can be awkward and, um, yeah. And then when we wake up, I’m stretched out taking up the entire damn bed and you’re curled up in an itty-bitty ball on the edge. And this is wrong. Right?”  
Shingo looked confused.  
“I always go all spread-eagled in the night, I can’t help it. But the only time it hasn’t happened is if – is if I’m sleeping, uh, with a person, and I go to bed all… all, um, cuddled up. If I go to sleep like that, I wake up like that. See?”  
“So…” Shingo tried to process this. “You want me to hold you while you’re asleep?”  
“No! I mean, yes. I mean… I don’t care about the awkward, I just don’t want you to be all squished up at the side.”  
Shingo bit his lip and his nostrils flared and un-flared rapidly. Oh no, thought Nakai, surely he wasn’t going to cry? “It’s okay, I get it, the answer is no – you’re probably scared of me ‘cos I remind you of the other me – ”  
“Yes,” said Shingo, the tears still in his eyes.  
“That’s okay, it’s completely understandable – ”  
“No, I mean, _yes_ ,” said Shingo. “The answer to your question is yes.”  
Nakai stopped. Could Shingo really mean it? “Do you promise?”  
“Yes!”  
“Then why are you nearly crying?”  
“Oh,” said Shingo, smiling through the tears. “It’s just that… no one’s ever shown that kind of concern for my comfort before.”  
Nakai was sickened to think that no one in this god-forsaken place had even given Shingo such a small amount of simple consideration. He smiled, weakly. “Okay, it’s decided,” he said. “I’ll lie here… okay? And you lie… um, here… And if I just – sorry – put my arm under your neck…”  
Tentatively, they arranged themselves closely together, trying to find a comfortable way to lie. It took a while, but they did find one, and settled into silence. Nakai was worried for a while that Shingo would think it necessary to offer sexual favours again, but thankfully he didn’t.

Nakai woke up once during the night and found Shingo still in his arms, worry visible in his face even in sleep. Shingo’s hand contracted slightly on his arm reflexively. Nakai awkwardly stroked his hair, wanting to comfort him from whatever nightmare haunted him.


	14. Our Universe – Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated R (for sexual content).

They finally arrived at the venue and dumped their stuff in their dressing rooms, one for Nakai and Kimura, one for Goro, Shingo and Tsuyoshi. Then the final run-through, with the same odd, flat feeling you always get when performing for a sea of empty seats. Really it was just going through the motions, all of them saving their real passion for later in the day. Then off for a meal while the other acts rehearsed and back to the dressing rooms and at last they were getting into their performance clothes and getting themselves psyched up. Kimura, as was usual pre-performance, was in a great mood, full of liveliness and anticipation of the show to come. Nakai, who earlier on had been privately irate at not having his own dressing room, now realised he could use this and Kimura’s mood to his advantage. Halfway through getting changed, one shirt flung in the corner and the other in his hands, Nakai turned to Kimura and said, “Hey. Don’t think I’m trying to change the choreography again, but… for our duo part on the side, wanna try something fun?”  
Kimura had always enjoyed flirting with Nakai as he regarded it as utterly safe, seeing as neither of them could possibly be serious. A grin spread over his face. “What kind of fun?” 

At last the concert had begun. After what seemed like hours of agonising waiting through the other acts, SMAP finally emerged from behind the curtain, prompting a surge of screaming from the crowd louder than any yet that day. Nakai smiled, basking in the adoration of the crowd. At least this much was the same.  
The intro music began and they started their dance routine. Straight away Nakai could see the difference in the other members, each one of them coming alive, growing into true pop idols under the audience’s loving gaze. And out of all of them, the one this was most true of was Kimura.  
How he shone under lights, in costume, in front of cameras. Kimura was feeding on the attention, growing from it, becoming more than what he was. Nakai threw himself into the dance routine, full of anticipation. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was how to make any choreography look hot.  
Then came the part where Shingo, Goro and Tsuyoshi were busy in their little formation of three and Nakai and Kimura stood back to back for their duo part. Throwing a sultry look to the audience, Nakai leant back. Kimura did the same. They were leaning into each other, and the audience felt the sexual tension and screamed.  
Kimura was spurred on by the reaction and Nakai could see it. So he played it up some more, and Kimura played along. Letting his hand linger on Kimura’s shoulder as long as possible before the next step demanded he move further away; licking his lips and Kimura pouting in answer; two perfect, synchronised hip-swivels combined with smouldering eye-contact. At last the five of them struck their final pose and the audience erupted with applause.  
Striding off stage fairly exploding with energy, Kimura almost ran down the corridor, giving high fives to random staff members and fellow performers as he went. Nakai ran after him, breathless, laughing. Then they reached the dressing room and Nakai slammed the door shut and threw his arms around Kimura’s shoulders.  
Kimura squeezed back, laughing with the exhilaration of the performance. “Wasn’t that just – ”  
His words were cut off by Nakai’s lips meeting his own.  
Kimura, startled, pulled away. “What are you d– ”  
Nakai silenced him by kissing him again. Kimura could feel himself almost glowing, the unexpected physical contact with Nakai multiplying and feeding the energy all of them had raised during the concert. Still high on the erotic energy of thousands, Kimura found that he was responding. Somewhere in the back of his brain a warning bell was ringing that told him he had to stop, but oh, hell, why would he want to when it felt like this for their chests to press slick-sweat together, for Nakai’s hands to roam his back in frantic caresses, for the tip of Nakai’s tongue to taste his own? It was almost frightening how well Nakai knew how to push his buttons. Kimura felt as if he was shining, channelling the concentrated desire he’d absorbed from the crowd. Nakai pressed against him, his hips beginning to grind.  
Kimura exhaled forcefully and thrust back, revelling in the sensation, energy coursing through his body, tilting his head back as Nakai kissed and bit his neck.  
“Hey – ” protested Kimura, though he was chuckling, as Nakai bit a little too hard.  
Nakai grinned. “Sorry,” he panted, and kissed the red mark on Kimura’s throat in false contrition. He had lost himself for a second, imagining he was with a different Kimura.  
Nakai’s hand pushed Kimura’s shirt, already open almost to the waist, right off his shoulder and nipped his collarbone before leaning his head further down to lick a delicious brown nipple. Kimura groaned and arched his back, truly the unabashed sensualist. Nakai smiled around the nipple before blazing a rapid trail of kisses back up to Kimura’s mouth, settling his hips back into that wondrous rhythmic friction.  
Kimura kissed him back so forcefully that Nakai began to almost resent it, experiencing a momentary desire to break away and reassert his authority, make Kimura beg for it… but that was his Kimura he was thinking of. This Kimura, Nakai suspected, would regain his senses as soon as he lost momentum – and yet would never want to play this quite as violently as Nakai wished. So instead Nakai continued as he was, though his awareness of the restrictions he had with this Kimura was frustrating him. After forcing himself to be gentle with Tsuyoshi and the even greater delicacy required in his still incomplete seduction of Shingo, not being able to just let himself _go_ as he would with his own Kimura was driving him to distraction. And Kimura was making it worse by being so wonderfully rough with him, having just now turned them around and actually shoved Nakai up against the wall, hard. Nakai laughed with pure joy at his discovery. Kimura, this virtuous romantic hero Kimura, got off on confrontation just as much as the cruel Kimura he knew so well.  
“Is something funny?” inquired Kimura, his eyebrow arching dangerously even as his fingers fiddled with Nakai’s belt.  
“Not at all,” grinned Nakai. And he snapped open the buttons of Kimura’s jeans, one, two, three and at last they were skin to skin where it really counted.  
And then his head was thrown back and Kimura was gasping against his chest and everything was narrowing down to this one pinprick-small moment and then an instant of utter silence and then, god fuck yes NOW, exploding out again, scattering their wits and awareness and leaving them boneless, slumped, half-naked and fused together on the dressing room floor.  
And then Nakai said, “So how _is_ Shizuka, anyway?”  
All the colour drained from Kimura’s face.  
Nakai had several minutes ago stopped hoping that Kimura had thus far had only female partners, judging Kimura’s demeanour to be far too confident for a first-timer, but now his other hope was confirmed. Clearly the experience of infidelity was new to Kimura.  
“And the girls,” Nakai persisted. “How are they doing?”  
Kimura’s face went, if possible, even whiter. He scrambled backwards on the floor, trying to get away from Nakai.  
Nakai let out a tiny chuckle and got to his feet, hoisting his pants back up. “I was right, after all,” he murmured, apparently to himself.  
“Right?” Kimura managed to get out.  
“About you… and guys.” He unconcernedly wiped his chest off with the shirt he’d worn in the concert and threw on a jacket from his stuff in the corner. “Actually, it’s pretty obvious.” And with that, he left.  
Kimura sat on the floor, half naked, all energy and adrenaline exorcised, self-awareness and sense returned, finally allowing him to come to a full realisation of what it was he had just done.

 

When Tsuyoshi tried to call Shingo, wanting to ask him what they should do about Kimura leaving SMAP, he just got the answering machine message. He hung up, not feeling as if he could say something that important in a message. Tsuyoshi frowned; Shingo had been awfully hard to catch lately. Tsuyoshi had been unable to talk to him about the issue in the dressing room that morning because Goro, who he believed was covering up for Kimura, had been there… and Shingo had slipped off to have lunch alone before Tsuyoshi could catch him. Tsuyoshi had even tried calling him, wanting to suggest they meet up, but Shingo hadn’t answered his phone. Not knowing that Shingo needed to be alone to think through Nakai’s revelations of the previous night, Tsuyoshi wondered whether Shingo was annoyed at him for some reason. Getting his answering machine again tonight strengthened this impression. Tsuyoshi felt discouraged, as he knew he wouldn’t be seeing Shingo tomorrow, but he resolved to try calling again the following morning. Maybe he could find out what he’d done wrong too.

 

Kimura sat brooding in his armchair, looking out the window. Seven years, he thought. Seven years, resisting every sweet young thing that threw herself at him, every too-damned-attractive co-star, every cute guy with a knowing glance who passed him by. Because he knew that this was it – he’d said the words, and he’d be damned if he didn’t keep his promise. Sure, it hadn’t been intention originally, to marry her – that close to the beginning of the relationship, it wasn’t really the sort of thing you thought about. He hadn’t even realised he was in love yet.  
But then he’d had to. He’d made his decision – and, not being the sort of person to do things in half-measures, he’d really committed himself to it. And every year he became more and more sure that he’d made the right decision.  
And now he had broken his word in an instant. And with Nakai, of all people…  
And it seemed, in retrospect, so calculated on his part. How was such deliberate cruelty possible of Nakai, who Kimura had thought he knew like the back of his hand? Had a sudden change come about, or had Nakai been hiding a seriously nasty streak for the entire two decades Kimura had known him? Had Kimura done something terrible that warranted revenge? And surely Nakai wasn’t even interested in men… or had Kimura just been assuming this? If so, Nakai had a better poker face than Kimura, because he had guessed, _he had guessed,_ was it really that obvious? Did everybody know and make snide comments behind his back? Had he failed to hide his inclinations so badly – was he that inept an actor? But what had come over Nakai, anyway, for him to force the issue like this?  
“Aren’t you coming to bed?”  
Kimura glanced over at his wife, then looked down. “Maybe not.”  
He had been sitting there staring out the window for such a long time that she’d started to wonder what was on his mind.  
“You’re usually in a great mood after concerts,” she observed.  
Kimura shrank down in his chair. “I just… need to think.”  
She seemed irritated. “You can think in bed.”  
“No, I – ” Kimura almost rose to the bait, but then knew he couldn’t. “I can’t do this right now. Just let me be.”  
Shizuka looked at him searchingly for a moment, then nodded. She trusted him.

 

Early that evening, Nakai had a lock put onto the outside of his bedroom door. He told the tradesman he would be needing to keep a dog in.


	15. Our Universe – Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

This time when Nakai said, “Do you want to have a drink up on the roof?” he was sure to say it with considerably greater nervousness. But Shingo nodded, and it wasn’t long before they were looking at the skyline again.  
Nakai sat quietly, waiting for Shingo to speak and set the tone, give him a clue as to how he was going with this.  
Shingo didn’t speak for awhile, stealing looks at Nakai sideways before looking back fixedly at the skyline. Then at last he spoke. “We did spend a lot of time together on SataSma that year.”  
Well. That completely threw Nakai off, but he tried to say “we did” in a thoughtful way as if he knew exactly what Shingo was talking about.  
“And that’s when you… started…” Shingo trailed off.  
“Yeah.” Okay, so they were talking about the start of his alleged affection for Shingo. Good. He knew where he was now.  
“Nakai-kun,” Shingo began, but then stopped. “Nakai-kun…”  
Seeing how much difficulty Shingo was having, Nakai decided to capitalise on it. “Stop – don’t –” Nakai rose to his feet and began to pace, noting from the corner of his eye how upset Shingo looked. “I’ve already been through this in my head so many times… I don’t think I want to actually hear you say it. I’m sorry I told you like I did, and… and I won’t bring it up again. I knew you’d be upset, it’s just as Kimura said – I should have listened to him – ”  
“You talked to Kimura-kun about this?” Shingo, shocked.  
“I had to talk to someone, I was going crazy!” said Nakai.  
“And hang on, what do you mean you ‘should have listened to him’, what’s all that about?”  
“Nothing,” said Nakai quickly.  
“What did he say?” Shingo was starting to grow suspicious.  
“I don’t think I should tell you,” Nakai mumbled.  
“And why not?” enquired Shingo, becoming more and more outraged. “I’ve got a right to know. Anyway if you don’t I’ll go and ask him directly – ”  
Anything but that! “Okay, okay! Look, it wasn’t that bad anyway. He just said…” Nakai pretended to be reluctant. “He just said… that you probably weren’t ready for something like that.”  
Shingo’s eyes narrowed. “What does _that_ mean, ‘not ready’?”  
“I don’t know,” Nakai dissembled.  
“Not ‘ready’ for a serious relationship? Because I could be, he doesn’t know that.”  
“Or not ready for… you know.”  
“Just because he’s all married and – what?”  
“You know!” Nakai gestured towards himself, then to Shingo.  
“What??”  
“The… the whole guy thing.”  
“What – so I’m immature for thinking that’s a big deal? And what does he know about that stuff, anyway?”  
Nakai feigned surprise. “He never told you?”  
Shingo’s jaw dropped. “No WAY.”  
“But I thought all of us knew – ”  
“He’s _married_!”  
“Yeah, but before that…”  
Now it was Shingo who was pacing. “I can’t believe it! Kimura-kun is… Kimura-kun likes… and he thinks I’m prejudiced!”  
“Well, he said you’d be angry, and look at you…”  
“Angry!” retorted Shingo angrily. “I’m not angry!”  
“You sound it,” said Nakai in a small voice.  
“Okay, I am angry. But at Kimura-kun, not at you. He was making out that I’m completely immature! And all you did was…” Shingo stopped, unsure of what Nakai’s crime had been.  
“…fall in love,” Nakai whispered.  
“I had been going to say ‘try to kiss me’,” said Shingo cautiously, “but… that could work too. In the sentence. Is it… is it really true?”  
“Would I make this up?” Nakai’s facsimile of shame and agony was quite realistic. “I’m so sorry…”  
“Stop apologising!”  
“You’ll hate me now…”  
“I don’t hate you! Don’t be stupid, I couldn’t hate you if I tried.”  
We’ll see about that, thought Nakai, but what he said was, “Then how _do_ you feel?”  
“I don’t know,” Shingo said. “I’ve been trying to think about it, and I like you, but…” he trailed off.  
“But that’s all, you could never love me, it’s impossible, I’ll just go back downstairs and drown my sorrows and you can go home and forget this ever happened.” He got to his feet but Shingo put his hands on Nakai’s shoulders and sat him down again.  
“Stop it!” admonished Shingo. “You’re just assuming answers without even asking the questions.”  
“So… I’m wrong?” said Nakai with a touch of hope.  
“Yes, you’re wrong! You, Nakai Masahiro, are very, very incorrect! I like you a lot, you’re one of my closest friends and have been for fifteen years, we know each other’s faults and idiosyncrasies – why shouldn’t we make a perfect couple? The only problem is we’re both men.”  
Nakai’s expression grew dark.  
“ _Not_ prejudiced!” defended Shingo suddenly. “I mean…the only problem is, I’ve never been with a guy as such, so I don’t know if that’s possible for me.”  
Nakai mumbled, “I don’t want to disgust you…”  
“Shut up! You’re adorable, that’s the opposite of disgusting.”  
Shingo still held Nakai about the shoulders. Nakai looked up under his eyelashes, knowing how vulnerable it made him appear. “Will you kiss me?” he asked softly.  
“Yes,” said Shingo firmly. Then frowned, head on one side, as he apparently tried to get his head around actually doing so.  
He leaned forward slowly, angled his head down. Paused, inches away from Nakai’s face. Bit his lip in indecision. Nakai, pretending to be unable to cope with the suspense, closed his eyes. That did it – Shingo darted in and kissed Nakai ever-so-briefly on the lips. Nakai opened his eyes to see Shingo dancing up and down like a boxer, punching imaginary opponents.  
“Yesss!!” He appeared to be as pleased as if he had just passed a challenging test.  
“Was it that difficult for you?” Nakai asked quietly.  
Shingo stopped shadow-boxing and looked over. “Huh?”  
“That short a kiss was so difficult, that it requires major celebration…”  
“Oh, shut up!” Shingo wrapped himself around Nakai and kissed him again, this time at length and with some amount of sincerity. He pulled away gently and smiled, his whole face aglow. “Not so difficult,” he said, and took Nakai’s hand, holding it only slightly self-consciously as they looked once more out at the city lights, twinkling like stars.


	16. Their Universe – Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated R (implied violence, implied child abuse).

Nakai was wrenched from sleep by the irritating beeping of the alarm. He groaned, reached over, shut it off, and settled his arm back around Shingo. “No point trying,” he muttered. Then he opened his eyes – and saw Shingo’s, half-open and blinking slowly and sleepily at him. He was in bed with Shingo. “Weird,” Nakai thought. Then: “Oh well.” Shingo was big and warm and incredibly comforting to snuggle against, and Nakai wasn’t nearly awake enough for this to worry him.   
Shingo stirred a little. “Um…”  
“Shh, it’s Saturday. Go back to sleep,” mumbled Nakai.   
“Um, Nakai-sama… actually it’s Friday.”  
“Is it?” Nakai squinted at Shingo. “Do we have to do anything today?”  
Shingo, despite being not completely awake, still remembered. “You have a day off, the others have a half-day, and I start at eight.”  
“Eight in the _morning?”_   
“Yes,” said Shingo.   
“Aww…” Nakai, being very comfortable where he was, delayed the inevitable and didn’t move.  
“Nakai-sama, I have a commercial to shoot today,” prompted Shingo.  
“Oh. Right.” Nakai regarded Shingo uncertainly for a moment and then had to consciously make an effort to physically _let go._  
Shingo extricated himself and went to leave, needing to get clothes from his own room.   
“When will you get back?” asked Nakai, then silently cursed himself for sounding so needy.   
“Tonight,” said Shingo. “By six, I think.”  
“Okay, well… see you then,” said Nakai reluctantly. He wasn’t feeling too good about having to cope with the others without Shingo’s help.  
In any case, probably the best thing to do right now was to get more sleep. So Nakai rolled over and, of course, immediately found himself sprawled across the entire bed.

When Nakai woke up the second time that morning, he was alone. It was quite nice actually, the whole bed to himself… but then he remembered that soon he would have to get up, and interact with other people, and before that choose an outfit, and before that _look in the closet_. Oh no… not the closet…  
The thought of that was enough to make him hide under the covers for another ten minutes or so, but then the hunger started getting to him so at last he planted his feet on the floor and faced the closet with determination.   
But then he saw, neatly folded up on the floor, a small pile of clothes with a scrap of paper on top. He picked up the note, and read:

_Dear Nakai-sama,_  
I have picked this out for you to wear today and I hope you won’t dislike it as much as the previous ones. I am terribly sorry but there is nothing to eat in the fridge, I got breakfast in the common area and you will have to too. I sincerely apologise for failing to think ahead and get something for your kitchen so you wouldn’t have to go out and talk to the others. If you are very authoritative and avoid being friendly it should be okay. I will come home as early as I can.  
– Shingo.  
P.S. Maybe it would be best to destroy this note so that it is not discovered. 

Nakai did tear the note up and throw it in the bin, but he was so touched by Shingo’s thoughtfulness that it was some minutes before he was able to do so.

 

Nakai entered the common area and made a beeline for the fridge, ignoring Kimura who was slouching in an armchair drinking coffee.   
“Good morning,” said Kimura politely, as though he was concerned he’d be in trouble if he didn’t.   
Nakai grunted non-committally as he fixed himself some breakfast. He wondered if he could get away with actually taking the meal back to his room, but after a moment’s thought decided that would just look _too_ weird. So he sat down at the table to eat.  
Then two bad things happened at once. Firstly, Goro walked in and started making coffee, immediately followed by Tsuyoshi who lowered himself elegantly into an armchair, crossed his legs, and waited. Secondly, Kimura unfolded himself out of his seat and came to sit at the table across from Nakai.   
Nakai looked up to find Kimura leaning on his elbow and looking seriously into Nakai’s eyes, his long hair scraping the tabletop. It was first thing in the morning. Naturally, he looked fantastic.  
“Nakai-sama,” he said in a low voice, “I have something to report.”  
Nakai frowned. “Report?”  
“About Shingo.”  
Tsuyoshi and Goro’s heads turned in interest.  
Nakai wondered anxiously where this was going, but tried to stay calm. “What about him?”  
“During the concert yesterday,” said Kimura, as if he was revealing a deadly secret, “Shingo stopped dancing.”  
Nakai looked blankly at Kimura. “What, just stopped?”  
“In the middle of a sequence – the audience _must_ have noticed. He just stopped and stared, for about ten seconds.”  
“Did he?” asked Goro with interest.  
“When?” inquired Tsuyoshi. Neither of them had seen it.  
“I think,” said Kimura with eyes narrowed, “that it was after the part where Nakai-sama struck Goro.”  
“Really?” said Tsuyoshi, raising an eyebrow. Then he gave a sharp tug on Goro’s chain to wipe the wistful, faraway look off Goro’s face.   
“Shall I punish him?” asked Kimura hopefully.  
“I’ll take care of it,” said Nakai firmly.  
“I have an idea,” put in Tsuyoshi.  
“I _said_ I’ll take care of it!” Nakai bit out the words, sharply and loudly.  
Tsuyoshi backed down. “Okay,” he said, “Just don’t go too far. We don’t want a repeat of what happened with Mori.”  
“Yeah,” said Goro. “I don’t want to have to pretend to be sad at _another_ funeral…”  
It took all of five seconds for the implications of these words to sink into Nakai’s brain. As soon as they did, he went straight from shock to fury, leaping to his feet so rapidly that his chair actually clattered backwards to the floor. His hands were fists. He wanted more than anything else to attack Goro again, to take on all of them, all of the bastards… but somehow he managed to control his rage enough to turn on his heel and storm out of the common area, into the elevator, and back to his room. But he felt so shut in, so trapped, that he threw on a large, plain coat, wrapped a scarf around his neck and pulled it half over his face, jammed a hat on his head and walked out onto the street. He had to get the hell out.

 

Consumed by the desire to get as far away from the compound as he could, Nakai went into the train station. He stared at the diagram of the Yamanote Line, its wide loop circling endlessly around the vast sprawl of Tokyo. Impatient for some sense of movement and escape, Nakai bought a ticket.

He rode the Yamanote Line.

Finding sunglasses in his pocket, he slid them on, avoiding others’ curious gaze. He knew that he was not only recognisable but also recognisably furious.  
He visited Ueno Park, hoping to feel some measure of freedom in its wide open spaces. He walked rapidly around the park, trying to burn off the energy born of anger. But as he reached the central part of the park, he slowed, confusion setting in. The familiar blue tarpaulin tents of the homeless were... completely gone.   
Nakai looked around himself for a moment, trying to work out where they had gotten to. “What happened to all the homeless people?” he asked an elderly but respectable-looking passer-by.  
“They got rid of them,” the man replied.  
Nakai stared open-mouthed, about to ask exactly what he meant by that, but the man had already walked away.   
Nakai felt like shouting after him. He felt like getting up on a soap box and denouncing all that was ill with this world. He felt like tearing branches off the trees.  
But he stayed quiet, and walked.

He rode the Yamanote Line.

In Ikebukuro he was offered drugs by a woman in pearls and an expensive suit and sex by a vacant-eyed boy barely into his teens. They were both taken aback by the violence with which Nakai refused.

He rode the Yamanote Line.

He visited Yoyogi Park, tired of anger, desperate for comfort, hoping to pass a few pleasant moments listening to passionate hippy buskers or sweetly incompetent ensembles of children playing the melodica. But the teenage girls were handing out flyers for “Live Flesh August Hardcore Show”, and the teenage boys were fighting with switchblades.

He rode the Yamanote Line.

Having found no solace in open spaces, Nakai instead shut himself up in the smallest place he could find. It was a capsule hotel, and he curled up inside this tiny plastic coffin-like place and wept, uncensored this time, his whole body shaking and hot tears squeezing out his tightly shut eyes.  
He cried until he could cry no more.   
He slept.  
He awoke dry-eyed, wanting more than anything not just to be out of the country, but to be out of this world and back in his own. He wanted it so much that it hurt.

He rode the Yamanote Line, now almost back to where he started.

In a daze, he wandered the back streets between Shibuya and Harajuku, meandering in the tiny streets, trying to go where the least people were. Reaching a dead end, he turned around and was momentarily disoriented – which direction had he come from?  
Why did it matter? He turned left, but realised not long after that he had not come from this direction at all – for here was a small, decrepit shrine.  
What else was there left to do but pray?  
Nakai approached it. It was tiny, less than a metre across, the cracked stone torii, too low to actually step through, set very close. A small stone statue of a fox sat within the dilapidated wooden shrine, a few dried flowers and a wrinkled apple at its feet. There was no bell to ring and nowhere to wash his hands, so Nakai just clapped and bowed.  
“Please, let me get back,” he prayed silently, desperately. “Let there be a way back… Oh please help me, please…”

_“If you want to get back, you need to find a different portal.”_


	17. Their Universe – Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG-13.

“Aaah!” Nakai cried out in alarm – someone had answered him! His eyes flew open and he saw that within the shrine, not grey stylised stone but red-furred and bright-eyed, there was a live, grinning fox.  
“A FOX!!” he yelled in alarm.  
“Fox spirit, actually,” it said, brushing its ear with its paw as if it was trying to look casual.   
“I didn’t think there were any kami-sama in this world,” Nakai muttered.  
“Of course there are,” admonished the fox spirit. “It’s just that no one pays much attention to them here. People don’t respect kami. Kami don’t protect people. The feeling is mutual.”  
Nakai stared for a moment, then shook himself. “What were you saying about a portal?”  
“There are plenty of doorways from one world to another,” explained the fox. “Some are random. Some open regularly. And I happen to have a calendar.” The fox spirit extended its paw and Nakai saw that indeed, there was a tiny calendar with all the numerals written in kanji. Many of the dates had odd-looking symbols scribbled on them. “Here,” the fox explained, “is today. And all these,” the fox indicated the scribbles, “tell us which doorways to where open when. Where are you from?”   
Nakai stared. “…Japan,” he said foolishly.  
The fox made a noise of exasperation. “Of course; but which one?”  
Nakai opened and shut his mouth a few times, then gave up. “I don’t know.”  
The fox spirit shook its furry head disapprovingly. “Humans! No matter, I’m sure I can work it out. Who’s the prime minister?”  
“Abe.”  
“What nationality were the first people to walk on the moon?”  
“American.”  
“What colour are the tiles in your bathroom?”  
“Blue! What the hell kind of questions _are_ these?”  
“Don’t get stroppy,” the fox grinned, showing its teeth, “I just worked out where you’re from. And the next gateway from this Japan to that Japan will open…” It peered at the calendar. “…early next year.”  
“Next year?! That’s nearly six months away!” howled Nakai.   
“That’s the next time there’s one open, no use complaining about it to me, child.”  
“Oh no, oh no, oh no…” Nakai held his aching head in his hands. “I guess it’s okay... I’ll go to New Zealand with Shingo like we’d planned.” Nakai wondered whether it would be horrible there too. “Are there any portals from there?”  
The fox spirit looked at him a little patronisingly. “How would I know? New Zealand doesn’t have Shinto shrines,” it said. “I think they have a different kind of kami-sama there.”  
Nakai let out a ragged breath. “I guess that’s it,” he said, his shoulders sagging. “I’m never, ever going back home.” He looked bleakly at the fox. “Thanks for trying to help.”   
Glassy-eyed, he turned to trudge away.

Then the fox spoke again. “Wait – I didn’t see this.”  
He turned back around. “What?”  
“This portal. There’s one that opens tomorrow evening, I almost didn’t see it because it’s written so small – only opens for a minute, you see.”  
“Tomorrow? There’s one tomorrow, I can make it, tell me where it is!” exclaimed Nakai, laying his hands on the fox and shaking it. “Tell me!”  
“Take your paws off me, if you please,” said the fox spirit frostily, “and I shall.”  
Nakai released it instantly and apologised humbly.  
“That’s better.” The fox shook itself a little to rearrange its fur to its liking, then went on. “The gateway is at a shrine in Kyoto. Have you ever been to Inari Jinja?””  
“Once.”  
“Good,” said the fox. “Now, perhaps you remember or perhaps you do not remember that the long line of torii divides into two pathways, yes?”  
“I remember,” said Nakai urgently. “Go on.”  
“Take the left hand path and continue on until you see, on the left, a tiny shrine off to the side. It has some very small torii. If you go through the furthest torii, you will be in the other world. It’s designed for foxes, mind, so it might be too small, but…”  
“I’ll try,” said Nakai. “Thank you – thank you so much – sorry for disturbing you – thank you!” Nakai bowed repeatedly as he thanked the fox spirit, his hands together in what he hoped was a respectfully prayerful gesture.  
Then he turned tail and ran, hearing the fox call behind him, “And remember you’ve only got a one minute window – you must do it before 6:23, or you won’t get through! Before 6:23!”

 

Nakai rushed back to tell Shingo what he’d learned. His room, however, was empty. He went to Kimura’s and found it empty too. A horrible sinking feeling began to descend over him. He opened Goro’s door – again, nobody. Then with a sense of foreboding he approached the door labelled “Kusanagi Tsuyoshi”, gathered his courage, opened the door in a decisive motion, and strode in.  
Nakai took in a lot of information in the instant that followed. Shingo, stripped to the waist and cringing on the floor, both hands cuffed to one leg of the bed, on which Kimura was lounging with languid disinterest… Tsuyoshi, standing with a cigarette between his lips… Goro, holding a lighter, leaning in close to Tsuyoshi with eyes half-closed and a cat-like smile.   
Nakai took one look at the scene, and demanded, “What are you doing??”  
The three of them looked at him casually, as if this was a perfectly normal and acceptable position to be found in.  
“We thought we’d do cigarettes today,” said Tsuyoshi lightly. He exhaled smoke and bent over Shingo, extending the lit end towards Shingo’s chest.

“STOP!”

Everybody froze and looked at Nakai.   
“Why?” inquired Tsuyoshi at last.  
“Don’t touch him,” ordered Nakai, trying to think quickly. “He’s all mine this week. I’m keeping him for… something special.”  
After a long, icy-cold silence, Tsuyoshi stepped reluctantly away from Shingo – and towards Goro. Tsuyoshi grasped the chain attached to Goro’s collar, pulled him in… and then offered him the cigarette. Goro closed his lips around it and sucked. Confronted by such obvious symbolism Nakai felt his face heat up – and was suddenly struck by the awful knowledge that the blush must be visible. He stole a glance at Kimura, but the latter was regarding Goro and Tsuyoshi’s little charade with narrowed eyes.   
“Don’t get too excited,” said Kimura with a smirk. “Tsuyoshi, you’re coming with me.”  
Nakai thought he saw a split second of bitter resentment on Tsuyoshi’s face before it instantly melted back into polite, smooth neutral. “Of course, Kimura-sama,” he said. With a brief sidelong glance at Goro, he walked quietly out behind Kimura. Goro stood glowering after them, taking the insult as personally as it was meant.  
Nakai, who had temporarily been paralysed by this scandalising incident, came back to life. “Aren’t you going to let Shingo out?!” he demanded.   
Goro jumped. “Yes, Nakai-sama,” he said, and quickly took a small golden key from a bedside drawer and unlocked the cuffs. Nakai pulled Shingo up off the floor and dragged him out by the wrist, full of false confidence.

As soon as they got inside his room, Nakai whirled around and grabbed Shingo by the shoulders, who shrank away.  
“Are you alright?” Nakai demanded. “Did they get to you? Was I in time?”  
“No, I… please… Nakai-sama…” Shingo was struggling, clearly terrified.  
Nakai let go of him. “What? What’s wrong? Shingo!”  
Shingo backed away, afraid. “Something special?” he said. “What’s ‘something special’?”  
Nakai waved his hands frantically. “No, no, I was just saying that to stop them… I didn’t mean it!”  
“Keeping me for something special…” he repeated.  
“I was faking, Shingo. Pretending to be the other me. I had to, you know? Right, Shingo? Like you told me. I have to be authoritative, and powerful, and order people around, right? I was following your advice! Your very good advice…”  
Finally Shingo was starting to look at him as if he believed him. “Are you sure?”  
“Yes, yes, I’m sure. Please believe me, Shingo. It’s me. I’m not him. I’m not him.”  
At last it hit Shingo. “You saved me,” he whispered, a worshipful light coming into his eyes.  
Nakai shook his head. “That wasn’t saving you. What I’m about to do now is saving you. Shingo, we’re not going to New Zealand tomorrow. We’re going to another world.”


	18. Their Universe – Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

They slept fitfully that night, each of them small and afraid with the knowledge that the person he clung to was the only one who truly cared about him in the world. And each time Nakai awoke, he was still worrying about the day ahead, whether they could escape, how the plan could go wrong. He thought yearningly of the other world, how good it would be to be back, with Shingo by his side, slowly healing and learning to –   
No. Two Shingos.  
Nakai was suddenly very awake, thinking – what would happen when Shingo met Shingo? And then – why haven’t I met me? Where’s the other Nakai?  
The answer came at once: _in my world. With my Shingo, and my Tsuyoshi, and my Kimura, and my Goro._  
So, Nakai had fallen through a portal – but how had the other Nakai travelled? Maybe they had swapped automatically, Nakai theorised – maybe you can’t have two of one person in the same world… Which meant that if he took this Shingo with him to his world, the cheerful, confident Shingo who lived there would be instantly transported to this hellhole.  
Oh…God…

In the dim, pre-dawn light, Nakai could see that Shingo’s eyes were open.  
“Shingo,” he said, feeling ancient, “I can’t take you with me.”  
The widening of Shingo’s eyes in pain and shock was heart-breaking. “What?” His voice was hoarse with the remains of sleep.  
Nakai had to drag the words out of himself. “I can’t bring you back to my universe.”  
Shingo’s arms tightened around Nakai’s shoulders, his feet scrabbling as if for purchase on something, panicking, trying to get away and get closer at the same time. “But you said – you said they’d never hurt me again – you said you were going to save me – ”  
“I have to go through the portal alone, you can still take the plane to Auckland – if I take you back with me, my Shingo will end up here!”  
Shingo stopped struggling and stared at Nakai, his eyes accusatory. “ _Your_ Shingo.”  
That hurt – but Nakai had nothing to say to defend himself. Only more explanations. “I can’t subject him to this place. How would he survive? I’ve had you to help me – he’d have no one.”  
“You _promised_ me,” said Shingo, his voice shaking, his fingers digging into Nakai’s shoulders.   
“I don’t want to do this, Shingo, believe me! But I have to.”  
“You don’t,” insisted Shingo urgently.  
“I do,” said Nakai, feeling even through the sadness a small sense of pride in Shingo for being able to contradict him so strongly. “I have to think of both of you.”  
Shingo’s breath was coming fast and uneven. He clung to Nakai as if for dear life, pressing his forehead against Nakai’s neck, holding him tightly. His voice was so quiet and muffled when he spoke that it took Nakai several seconds to understand what it was that Shingo was repeating, over and over again. “Don’t leave me here… don’t leave me…”   
“I will always remind you of him,” said Nakai, trying desperately to justify this. “You’ll always be afraid of me.”  
“I’ll learn not to be,” Shingo said, distancing himself enough to look imploringly into Nakai’s eyes. “I’ll be brave. I can be. Will you take me with you then?” He withdrew his hands to wipe away the shining tracks left by tears down his cheeks. “Will you take me with you if I promise I’ll learn to be brave and strong and – more like him?”  
Nakai was horrified. “I don’t _want_ you to be like him,” he said forcefully. “You’re you. For fuck’s sake, be as afraid as you need to be.”  
“I’m sorry,” whimpered Shingo.  
“Shut up. _I’m_ sorry.” And then, much more softly, “I’m sorry that I can’t take you with me.”  
At last seeing that Nakai wasn’t going to back down over this, Shingo curled up, turned his back on Nakai, and sobbed.  
Nakai lay on his back in silence, tormented by guilt, and stared at the stark white ceiling. He wondered whether he had just destroyed whatever trust and confidence had been slowly building up in Shingo over the past tumultuous week.  
It seemed an age before Shingo’s sobs grew softer and eventually stopped.  
“Ne, Shingo,” said Nakai.  
“Mm mm?” Shingo’s voice was muffled and small.  
“Are you asleep?”  
“…No.”  
“Oh.”  
Silence.  
“Ne, Shingo.”  
“Mm?”  
“Do you hate me?”  
“…No.”  
“Because if you wanted to hate me, I’d understand.”  
“I don’t hate you.” Shingo’s voice still wobbly, but he sounded quite certain.  
Nakai sighed with relief.  
“Ne, Nakai-k-kun.” Shingo still had to put in some effort to actually say the disputed suffix.  
“Yeah?”   
“What will it be like in New Zealand?”  
“Green,” said Nakai, who really didn’t know, but was inexpressibly grateful that Shingo was talking to him again rather than crying. “Beautiful. Lonely.”  
“And what will I do there?”  
“You can work in a café,” said Nakai. “You’ll be the best waiter they have. And you’ll make the best Italian sandwiches, you know, with the thick bread and the eggplant and cheese.”  
“Focaccia,” said Shingo, turning over to face Nakai at last, trying to smile, his tears drying on his face.   
“Yeah. And you can eat as much as you like and get fat eating pasta and risotto every day. And I’ll – ” Nakai stopped, sighed, and began again. “And someone will love you for it.”  
“Who’s someone?” Shingo asked softly.  
“I don’t know,” said Nakai. “But there will be a someone.”  
Shingo shifted a little, curling his body up close to Nakai’s once again. Nakai regarded Shingo with aching fondness, thanking providence and redemption and trust and everything that had helped Shingo forgive him the unforgivable thing he had to do. Nakai felt Shingo’s fingers softly touch his face, tracing his features.  
“Are you looking for differences? Between me and him.”  
Shingo shook his head and moved his mouth into an expression which might, if it hadn’t been so miserable, have been a smile. “No. Trying to make sure I remember.”  
Nakai was undone. He threw his arms around Shingo once more and held him close, cursing the circumstances that demanded he abandon this poor boy who had become so dear to him these past few days. So dear that right now, embracing Shingo and kissing his forehead and stroking his hair, he almost felt that –   
BEEP – BEEP – BEEP – BEEP –   
Nakai slapped the off button. He had forgotten to set the alarm forward. It was 6:22.


	19. Our Universe – Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

It was Friday. Goro was doing a location shoot, but Shingo and Tsuyoshi each had a variety show to film and Nakai and Kimura both had commercials, so the four of them were at the studio. During a break around mid-morning, Nakai went and found Shingo, took him into a stairwell and planted the lightest of kisses on Shingo’s cheek, followed by his best shy-and-embarrassed face. Looking up through his eyelashes Nakai saw a flabbergasted but unmistakably delighted look on Shingo’s face. Then suddenly Nakai found himself lifted off his feet as Shingo threw his arms around Nakai and hugged him hard enough to part him from the floor. Nakai suppressed the urge to break free and backhand Shingo across the face, instead concentrating on manufacturing a convincing laugh.   
“You’re awesome,” said Shingo, kissed him briefly on the mouth, and grinned winningly.  
They stepped out of the stairwell with their hands still loosely linked together – but they yanked them apart when they saw someone coming down the corridor. It was just the makeup girl, but she flicked them a curious look as she passed by. Shingo wondered if they’d been seen. They were going to have to be more careful.

At lunch, Tsuyoshi finally managed to catch Shingo and take him aside. “Shingo,” he said, “I have to talk to you about something.”  
Shingo looked at him curiously. “What is it?”  
“It’s…” Tsuyoshi paused. He was still worried about what he had done to upset Shingo, but he had a bigger problem on his hands right now. “It’s about Kimura-kun.”  
Shingo looked surprised. “Oh.”   
Tsuyoshi dithered. “It’s something I shouldn’t… well, I’m not really supposed to tell you, but – ”  
“Oh, _this_!” interrupted Shingo, jumping to the wrong conclusion. “So you’ve decided that I’m allowed to know at last, have you?”  
This threw Tsuyoshi. “Sorry?”  
“I’m finally one of the big boys, am I? At the age of thirty!”  
Shingo’s sarcasm was confusing Tsuyoshi. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I really have to tell you – ”  
“Tsuyoshi,” said Shingo, clearly irritated, “I already know. What I want to know is why everyone seems to think _I’m_ too immature to handle something like that!”  
Tsuyoshi was baffled. “Who’s calling you immature?”  
“Everyone, it seems!” fumed Shingo. “As if I couldn’t deal with a thing like that. I mean, sure, it was a surprise…”  
“I’m pretty shocked,” said Tsuyoshi.  
“You are?” Shingo stopped, confused. “I thought you’d known for ages.”  
“No,” said Tsuyoshi, equally confused. “I just found out the day before yesterday.”  
“How?”  
“Kimura-kun was telling Goro-chan about some offer he’d had, Nakai-kun overheard them.”  
Shingo screwed up his face in distaste. “He boasts to Goro-chan about that stuff? I shouldn’t even be surprised…”  
Tsuyoshi couldn’t quite work out what Shingo meant by this, so he just continued. “He’d better not take it.”  
“Of course he’d better not! He _is_ married, after all.”  
Tsuyoshi frowned. “Eh?”  
“Seeing as he’s married, he’d better not take the offer.”  
Tsuyoshi stared at Shingo in complete incomprehension. “What has that got to do with whether he can leave the group or not?”  
Shingo’s eyebrows raised even more. “HUH? Kimura-kun wants to LEAVE SMAP??”  
“Why are you so shocked?” Tsuyoshi asked in disbelief. “You were just saying you already knew!”  
“I was talking about him being GAY, not him LEAVING. Shit!”  
Tsuyoshi’s jaw dropped. “GAY??”  
“Well, okay, partly gay. Bi. Whatever. But you knew that. Anyway, why would he leave? How could he leave? Why would he leave? Tell me he’s not leaving!”  
Tsuyoshi just opened and closed his mouth a few times and said, “Kimura-kun… is… huh??”  
“Stop pretending you didn’t already know! This is bad enough already.”  
“I’m not pretending!”  
“I can’t believe he’s leaving… I have to go and – hang on. Did you really seriously not know?”  
“Yes!” exclaimed Tsuyoshi. “I seriously did not know!”  
Shingo frowned. “So that means… that he told Nakai-kun and Goro-chan, but not us. The young ones…”  
“Or else it’s not true,” Tsuyoshi pointed out very sensibly.  
Shingo paused. “It’s kind of believable though, isn’t it.”  
“How do you tell?” said Tsuyoshi.  
“Good point,” admitted Shingo. “But it must be true. Or Nakai-kun thinks it’s true.”  
“He’s not winding you up?”  
“He couldn’t have been. We were having… a serious conversation.”   
Tsuyoshi wondered why Shingo suddenly looked very uncomfortable. “Oh.”  
“So Goro-chan’s supposed to know both of Kimura-kun’s secrets – we’d better talk to him.”  
“I tried,” said Tsuyoshi, “about the leaving thing anyway. But he wouldn’t say anything.”  
“So either he doesn’t know – or he’s lying.”  
“One of them is lying,” said Tsuyoshi, “and I think... that it could be, it might be, well, it’s probably Nakai-kun.”  
Shingo wondered why Tsuyoshi was stumbling over his words so much. “Why Nakai-kun?”  
Now it was Tsuyoshi’s turn to look very uncomfortable. “He’s been acting… weird lately.”  
“What do you mean?” said Shingo, suddenly defensive. “There’s nothing wrong with Nakai-kun, he’s perfectly normal. I think it’s Goro-chan who’s lying.”  
“Shingo, just – be careful.”  
Was Tsuyoshi trying to warn him against getting involved with Nakai? “I will – I am! Stop hassling me.” And Shingo left, leaving Tsuyoshi wondering what his problem was.  
Tsuyoshi had been trying to warn him, but not for the reasons Shingo imagined.

In a break mid-afternoon, Nakai found Tsuyoshi. “Did you talk to Goro?” he asked urgently. “What did he say?”  
Tsuyoshi was silent for a moment. Then he looked Nakai in the eye and said, “Not much.”  
“So he must be protecting Kimura then…”  
“Maybe,” said Tsuyoshi.   
Nakai was infuriated by Tsuyoshi’s lack of engagement. “What’s that look?” he demanded. “Don’t look at me like that.”  
“Well,” said Tsuyoshi, “I didn’t know about Kimura leaving till you told me, and Goro doesn’t know about it, and Shingo doesn’t know about it…”  
“Your point being?” Nakai’s voice was sharp as a knife.   
“Well, I…” Tsuyoshi grinned nervously. “I only have your word to go on, don’t I?”  
“You think I’m lying?”   
Tsuyoshi, never the best at reading the mood, missed the cold threat behind the words and laughed. “Well, you just tell me you’re not, and I’ll believe you.”  
Nakai stared at him. “I’m lying.”  
Tsuyoshi again tried to laugh it off. “What are you talking about? Of course you’re not lying! You wouldn’t lie to me, Nakai-kun. Just tell me what’s going on, it’s fine.”  
“I’m lying,” Nakai repeated. “Kimura’s not really leaving. What did you say to Shingo?”  
“I tried to ask him about Kimura leaving, but he just wanted to talk about Kimura being gay or something. It was weird. Nakai-kun, what’s going on?”  
Nakai’s dark eyes bored into him. “You tried to warn him about me, didn’t you.”  
“No,” said Tsuyoshi unconvincingly.  
“You really are a terrible liar.”  
Nakai flipped open his phone and held it up. At first Tsuyoshi didn’t get it, but then he saw on the screen… that picture. Himself.   
“Any magazine I can think of would be willing to pay a lot of money for this,” said Nakai, his voice chillingly light and conversational. He mimed making a call. “Hello, my name is Suzuki Taiichi, and I recently had a homosexual encounter with Kusanagi Tsuyoshi… yes, I have photographic evidence… yes… I’ll tell you all the details… of course…”  
Incensed, Tsuyoshi made a grab for the phone.  
Nakai just held it out of reach, laughing. “I’ve managed to make the ever-calm Tsuyoshi angry? I’m so proud.”  
Tsuyoshi tried to breathe deeply. “No one would believe you,” he said.  
Nakai’s face was calm and certain. “They will.”  
“No one would _care_.”  
“They will. Your reputation will be ruined. You will be made to leave the band. And because you’re the least popular member, no one will really care.”  
The look of shock and dismay on Tsuyoshi’s face was absolutely pitiful.   
“Don’t interfere between me and Shingo.”


	20. Our Universe – Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated R (violence, coarse language, psychological cruelty).

Shingo had real trouble for the last few hours of the afternoon staying cheerful and genki for the cameras when really he felt like punching someone. As soon as the working day was done he sought Kimura out and confronted him.  
“So. You’re abandoning us.”  
Kimura threw Shingo a look. “Abandoning?”  
“Off to do your own thing.” Shingo’s voice was bitter. It didn’t suit him. “You know there’ll be no SMAP without you.”  
Kimura frowned. “What are you talking about? I’m not leaving SMAP.”  
“So you’re trying to keep this a secret too? Am I that untrustworthy?”  
“Untrustworthy? You’re not – wait. ‘Too’? What do you mean, ‘too’?”  
Shingo lifted his chin and glared. “You know – your _other_ secret.”  
Panicking, Kimura retreated into hostility. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
Shingo tried to forgive him this blatant lie, as getting through to Kimura was more important to him than anger right now. “I was talking to Nakai the other day, and – ”   
Kimura leapt up as if someone had put ice down the back of his shirt. “He had no right to tell you that,” he said, rapidly, sharply, the idea of Nakai calmly detailing their dressing-room encounter to Shingo pressing in at his brain.  
“Oh, so it’s alright if the others know but not me?” inquired Shingo, his temper rising again.  
Kimura almost swayed on his feet, dizzy with shock. “He told _them_?”  
“Why does everyone insist on pretending this is only coming out _now_?” Shingo demanded.  
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Kimura, and this time it was true.  
“Don’t you trust me?” Shingo’s voice was almost plaintive now, but Kimura lost his temper with the confusions of this conversation so he didn’t notice.  
“What’s trust got to do with it?” Kimura shouted. “It’s my business! You’ve got no right to know that kind of thing.”  
Shingo almost laughed. “What are you trying to do, crawl back into the closet?”  
“Shut the FUCK up.”  
Shingo gave him an ugly look. “Arsehole,” he said, and walked off.   
Kimura let out a shout of frustration and punched the wall.  
So, he concluded, Shingo knew what he’d done with Nakai, thought he was leaving SMAP, and was making all sorts of comments that didn’t make sense. Like Nakai, his behaviour didn’t add up. Like Nakai, he couldn’t be trusted. Kimura was starting to wonder if something had gone horribly wrong with all the members except him…

Kimura got his stuff together, wanting more than anything else to go home, sit up in his armchair, and brood. Or maybe have a really good fight with Shizuka followed by spectacular make-up sex. But then he remembered the two of them had arranged to go out for dinner tonight – a rare occurrence and hence not something he could breezily change his mind about. He sighed, and headed for the exit.  
The sight of Shizuka waiting outside the door of the studio made his knot of tension unwind a little. Her hair hung dark and smooth past her shoulders, the glitter of earrings intermittently visible beneath. Kimura thought for the thousandth time how beautiful her smile was. She looked amazing.  
But she wasn’t alone.  
Nakai was with her.  
Kimura went cold with dread, the knot tightening once more. He slowed down as he approached the glass doors, but it was no use, they’d seen him now and were smiling and waving before continuing their animated conversation and he couldn’t procrastinate any longer, he had to step out those doors and have a conversation with the woman he was married to and the man he had accidentally had sex with.

He ignored Nakai and went straight for Shizuka, hugging and kissing her hello. He wanted to say, “shall we go?” but Nakai, god damn him, was still talking. Kimura couldn’t listen to what Nakai was saying, only stare and wonder how he could possibly be acting so natural.  
“Well, what do you think?” Shizuka’s voice cut into his thoughts.   
“Sorry?”  
“Nakai-kun could come to dinner with us too, what do you think?”  
“No,” said Kimura instantly.  
Nakai made a surprised and disappointed face that would have been adorable if Kimura hadn’t known it was completely false.  
“Wait a second,” said Shizuka, laying a hand on her husband’s shoulder and lowering her voice. “What do you mean, ‘no’? I thought it might be nice.”  
“Well,” he said, tried to think of an excuse, and failed. “Well, you thought wrong.”  
Shizuka’s eyes flashed with anger. “So you’re making the decision for us, then.”  
“Yes, I am!” he almost shouted, bristling.   
“Maybe he’ll change his mind,” interjected Nakai suddenly, in a soft, friendly voice. “He can be very flexible like that.” Nakai smiled a deadly smile at Kimura. “Can’t you?”  
That was it. Kimura took Nakai by the shoulders and forcibly dragged him back inside the building. Shizuka was following, fast and determined on her high heels, shouting something after him, so Kimura dragged Nakai into the first floor men’s toilets. That ought to give her the message that this was private.  
“What – the fuck – is wrong – with you?” snarled Kimura, punctuating his words with shoves.   
Nakai laughed, then suddenly took hold of both Kimura’s shoulders and shoved him back, his face instantly transforming into low-lidded menace. Kimura’s skull cracked against the hard tiled wall. “Fuck!” he swore.  
Nakai’s voice turned guttural and raspy. “Yeah,” he murmured, gripping Kimura possessively at the hip and closing in on him.  
“Fuck – off,” ground out Kimura, his face hot with anger and shame, realising with revulsion that his own pain had provoked in Nakai a sexual response. He pushed the smaller man away, hard, then pulled his arm back and swung at Nakai – who somehow deflected the punch with an effortless little motion of the elbow.  
Kimura swung again – same result.  
Nakai had been in hundreds of physical fights, quite a few of them with Kimura himself – a Kimura who had a similar approach and rather more experience. Their comparative skill level was nowhere near equal, and it showed.  
Furious, Kimura launched himself at Nakai, trying to grapple him, but in seconds Nakai had him crunched up against the wall with his arm twisted painfully behind him.  
“You don’t get it, do you,” said Nakai. “You’re mine now.”  
Kimura felt as if he were in a nightmare. Could this monstrous creature really be Nakai? “What the _fuck_ is that supposed to mean?” he spat, struggling fiercely then gasping in pain as Nakai twisted his arm a little more.  
“I can destroy not only your reputation but also your marriage,” said Nakai calmly. “All I have to do is tell them what we did.”  
Kimura went weak with shock, temporarily losing the ability to struggle. He had been trying, in the past few days, many ways of rationalising what had happened between Nakai and himself, but – blackmail? That was a reason he wouldn’t have thought up in his wildest dreams.   
“I know where you live,” murmured Nakai, softly, intimately. “I’d so love to visit your beautiful wife and meet your lovely little girls.”  
With a strangled cry Kimura regained his strength and almost succeeded in breaking free, but in the end only wrenched his own arm nearly out of its socket.  
“Shh,” soothed Nakai, “don’t hurt yourself. I can do that for you. Now, what was I saying? Oh, that’s right. I was threatening to tell your family what you get up to alone in dressing rooms with your dear friend Nakai… how am I going to explain that so the little ones will understand, I wonder?”  
“Stop,” said Kimura, almost beaten. “Please, just – just stop.”  
“Do you know what you have to do? To stop me from telling, to keep me away from your house, to preserve your reputation in the eyes of the public and your marriage and access to your children. It’s very simple, you know.”   
“What?” Kimura croaked, his eyes watering in pain.  
“Obey me.”  
With a final wrench of Kimura’s arm, almost making him scream, Nakai released him roughly and spoke again. “You won’t tell anyone about this,” he said, with a calm, idle certainty. “Because if you, do I’ll find out. And I’ll make you sorry.”  
And Nakai walked out, leaving Kimura crumpling to his knees on the bathroom floor.   
Kimura’s head was awhirl with anger, confusion, shame. All the excuses he had made for Nakai’s behaviour in his own mind over the past few days had come crumbling down, proven false, and Kimura’s worst fears had been realised. His cheerful, funny, loyal friend had transformed into a violent, amoral monster. There was no reason to believe that Nakai’s threats were empty, and Kimura trembled to think of what Nakai might order him to do – and the consequences of Nakai’s retaliation should Kimura refuse to do it.   
At last Kimura picked himself shakily up off the floor and leant heavily on the basin, staring at himself in the mirror. He felt outside himself, disconnected. The harrowed face staring back hardly seemed to belong to him. His eyes hurt and his throat and his chest but –   
“Takuya!”  
– he heard Shizuka’s voice calling his name and steeled himself. He wasn’t going to cry, oh no. He had to get himself together. He couldn’t tell her what was going on, so he had to act normal. Act – of course – he was an actor, wasn’t he? Kimura visualised a camera and immediately felt calmer. This was just another role, he told himself. Just another role.

Dinner with Shizuka was awful. They had an argument beforehand about whether he actually wanted to go or not – she was arguing that he didn’t, he was untruthfully arguing that he did – and it left them with an atmosphere both cold and disagreeable. Then the paparazzi started trying to take pictures and Kimura was seized by the uncharacteristic desire to punch them. The couple left the restaurant halfway through the meal.  
That night, Kimura once more sat up late brooding in his armchair, not wanting to go to bed for fear that when he made love to Shizuka he would be unable to stop imagining Nakai watching, smiling faintly.


	21. Our Universe – Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the NC-17 part! Contains sex with extremely dubious consent. In fact, it's pretty safe to call this non-con. Also, implied child abuse.

Nakai got back to his apartment, spread out on the couch, and then remembered what he had been planning to do for the evening. He called Shingo.  
“Would… would you like to come over?”  
Shingo was surprised. “Oh! Um…”  
Sensing reluctance, Nakai quickly cut in: “No pressure, nothing special. Just to hang out, drink beer, talk, whatever.”  
“Oh. Well…”  
“I mean – no – I didn’t mean it like, a romantic thing,” said Nakai, allowing his back-tracking to become rapid and awkward. “Well okay, maybe I did, because I do feel kind of romantic about – well not romantic exactly, but something a bit like that, and tonight, well, it doesn’t have to be and oh I’m ruining this now aren’t I so why don’t we just go to a bar instead?”  
Shingo felt he had to rescue him. “Your place is fine.”  
“Are you sure? I don’t want this to be weird or anything – ”  
“I’ve been to your place before, it’ll be alright. And we’ll be able to talk properly then.”  
Nakai smiled at how easy Shingo had been to talk around. “So, see you soon then?”  
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”  
“Hang on – I won’t be home till later,” said Nakai, thinking quickly, “so can you come at ten?”  
“Sure. See you then, bye.” Shingo hung up.

Nakai didn’t put his phone away. Instead, he went back into the menu and picked “Goro-chan”.  
“Moshi moshi?”  
“Goro-chan, genki?” said Nakai, trying to sound genki himself.  
“Mm, genki,” said Goro, sounding a little reserved. “What’s up?”  
“Come over for dinner tonight.”  
“Oh, well,” said Goro, “actually I’m meant to be going to this thing…”  
Recognising a polite excuse when he heard one, Nakai persisted. “Oh come on, it’ll be great. I never catch up with you, and… I have something I want to talk to you about.”  
“Really?” Goro was surprised, but Nakai suspected him to be wavering.  
“I bought this really excellent wine especially.”  
That appeared to clinch the matter. Half an hour later, Goro was at the door.  
“Nice jacket,” Nakai said, looking Goro up and down.  
“Uh… thanks,” said Goro, a little surprised. Did Nakai just… check him out? He dismissed the thought as ridiculous and stepped in the door.  
Goro surveyed the scene in astonishment. The lights were dimmed and the table was beautifully laid out for two, complete with shining cutlery, wine glasses and a perfect red rose in a vase. “Are you having a girl over later?”  
Nakai’s face was all innocence. “What do you mean?”  
“This… all this. The lights…”  
“My eyes got tired, so I turned the lights down. And this – I got this from a fan.” Nakai slid the rose from its vase and twirled it round in his fingers carelessly. “Just given it, in the street. Extraordinary. Had she been following me? Bit of a worry really.” He put it back in the vase. “Too good to waste, though – don’t you think?”  
“Yes…” Goro agreed distantly. There was something about the gleam in Nakai’s eye that Goro knew very well, but he couldn’t quite recall where from, so he sat down at the table.  
“How have you been?” said Nakai as he put down dishes on the table.  
“Good,” said Goro, but he was looking at the food. “You really cooked this?”  
“Really,” lied Nakai, pouring a glass of wine for each of them.  
Goro swirled the wine around the glass a little and tasted it. “Excellent,” he said with a touch of surprise.  
Nakai smiled. “You think I don’t know anything about wine?”  
“Didn’t know you had an interest.”  
They began to eat.  
Nakai looked at the clock. It was seven. That meant he had three hours until Shingo would arrive. He wasn’t sure exactly how, but he knew he could achieve his goal by then.

* * *

When Goro went limp and unresisting in Nakai’s arms he was really quite surprised. Denials, anger, vulnerability, declarations of secret affection, all these Nakai was prepared for. But not this passive acceptance, barely enough to be called consent.  
“What’s wrong?” he said cautiously, trying to gauge the situation.  
“Nothing. It’s okay,” said Goro. His eyes were downcast. He wasn’t moving.  
Being not the most considerate of souls, Nakai took him at his word and tried to kiss him again, but the complete and utter lack of response unnerved him.  
Against his own better judgement, he asked again. “Are you sure you’re alright?”  
“I’m okay. It’s okay.” Goro’s eyes briefly met his before they flitted away, and in that moment Nakai could see Goro was struggling against something inside. Outside, he wasn’t struggling at all. “It’s okay,” he said again, “I’m okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”  
Realisation dawned. “You’re… already… broken.”  
“It’s okay,” assured Goro with some facsimile of sincerity. “I’m okay, you know.” The smile was gone as soon as it arrived.  
“Well, Goro-chan,” said Nakai with a sunny smile, as he took Goro’s unresisting arms and raised them above his head, “I’m very glad that even in a place like this there are still people – like – me.” And, well and truly sick of reigning himself in for the sake of deceiving the other members, Nakai proceeded to use Goro just however he pleased. 

After rifling through his ridiculously large collection of his keys for some time, Shingo found the one to Nakai’s apartment and quietly let himself in. He had some idea of finding Nakai and ambushing him with a bear-hug; Shingo thought this would be rather sweet and rather funny. He slid off his shoes at the entrance and stepped noiselessly onto the carpeted floor. He noticed with surprise the low lighting and then the vase containing a beautiful red rose.  
Shingo’s heart melted. Poor, dear Nakai… How could Shingo coldly reject such a sweet, romantic gesture from one of his oldest and dearest friends? Right. Shingo’s resolve solidified. He was going to give this a proper go, for Nakai’s sake. He had to put aside his prejudices and be open to the possibility that the two of them, together, might… just… work.  
Hearing some movement, Shingo went to Nakai’s bedroom door and pushed it open without knocking.  
Shingo didn’t see how white Goro’s knuckles were as he clutched the bars at the bed-head, nor how horribly set and blank his expression was. All Shingo could take in was low light golden on skin, dark shadowed furrows on the bed where Goro’s hands and knees dug in, the slick, human sounds of Nakai’s movement behind him, Nakai’s flushed and distorted face. And their eyes met and Nakai absorbed from Shingo betrayal, shock, anger, pain, oh god fuck yes and came shuddering into Goro and was spent.  
And then Goro turned his head and his eyes met Shingo’s and that terrible blankness shattered into recognition and shock. For a few seconds, all that could be heard was the ragged breathing of all three. Then Shingo fled from the bedroom, instinctively sought a corner and staggered to his knees, too dizzy with shock and betrayal to get any further. He heard but could not process Goro saying something in a broken, desperate tone, and Nakai actually laughing – a cruel, amused snicker.  
Nakai emerged from the bedroom, still shirtless but zipping up a pair of pants. He paused briefly to click the lock, then came right up close to Shingo, who futilely scrabbled to get away, stuck in his corner.  
“Aw. Don’t I get another kiss?” pouted Nakai.  
Words banked up in Shingo’s throat, unable to escape.  
“I guess I’ve ruined my chances to get further now,” Nakai sighed, strolling to the table and, ignoring the glasses, drank some wine straight out of the bottle. “Pity, I was looking forward to you. And all I got was a handful of kisses… hardly worth all the trouble really, was it now?”  
“You – ” At last a word broke through, hoarse, cracking. “You said you loved me.”  
“I do,” said Nakai. And then, after a pause: “Just like I love Goro. And Kimura. And Tsuyoshi. Oh yes,” he said, in answer to Shingo’s mortified questioning expression, “I’ve had them as well. Did you think it was just you?”  
And at that moment, something in Shingo died – the something that had, until then, been his capacity to believe in love.

Goro had barely heard the snick of the lock. Decades of defences were cracking, everything so carefully built up rattling askew. But as he shuddered into chaos in slow motion, he heard something – something that reawakened his senses. At first he thought it was his own voice, pleading and shouting from twenty years ago, before he had learned that it had to happen, that really it was all okay. “No – don’t – _please_ , Nakai-kun – ”  
The pieces of consciousness that had been floating away from each other drew back and cleaved together again out of sheer urgency.  
It was not his voice. It was not a voice from the past. It was right now, and it was Shingo.  
Although seconds earlier he had barely even been capable of movement, Goro was now filled with the energy born of utter panic. He leapt to his feet and tried futilely to open the door. Finding it locked, he pounded on it with his fists and shouted. “Shingo! _Shingo_!”  
He heard Shingo shout, “Goro-chan!” but then Nakai’s piercing voice said, “He can’t help you.” In full fight-or-flight mode now, Goro scrambled to put some clothes on. Phone – wallet – good. Now, what could he use for a weapon? His eyes scanned the room desperately, but no possibilities suggested themselves.  
Then from the next room came the unmistakable and sickening sound of fist hitting flesh. A shout; rapid footsteps; and then the click, once more, of the lock. The door opened.  
“Shingo!” Goro yelled, and charged past Nakai, but the room was empty. Goro spun back around to see Nakai was leaning against the wall with a rapidly blackening eye and a twisted smile.  
“You just missed him,” Nakai said.  
So Goro fled.


	22. Our Universe – Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG-13.

Shingo pulled out into the biggest road he could find, so he could drive fast and not care. He barely registered the road ahead, his eyes stinging with tears. He had been so stupid to believe. So fucking stupid. But how could Nakai – how _could_ Nakai? How could Goro? When he had opened the bedroom door he had felt betrayed by Goro, blamed him almost, but then Nakai’s hands on Shingo’s face, his hair, under his shirt, closing around his wrists – thinking about it now, Shingo realised that Goro may have suffered what he had escaped.   
This made what he had seen even worse, because now he understood the depth of Nakai’s cruelty. How could he? How could Nakai, who he had grown up with, who he trusted, who he thought he knew so well – how could he be capable of such sadism?  
And he had convinced Shingo that he loved him. Shingo now hated him for making him believe in and open himself to a love that did not exist.  
Shingo realised how fast he was going, and pulled over. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. But then he remembered Goro and got out his phone.  
“Goro-chan – where are you?”  
“Are you okay?”  
“Is Nakai-kun with you?”  
“I’m in the car. I couldn’t – I didn’t – ”  
“Don’t try to – ”  
Down the line Shingo heard the screech of brakes. Then Goro’s shaken voice: “I have to go. I’m driving. I don’t want to have an accident.”   
The line went dead.  
With shaking hands he shoved the phone into his back pocket and looked out the window.  
It was raining. He was on the side of a highway he didn’t know. He stumbled out of the car and up the stone steps on the embankment, not caring where he was going.  
He couldn’t believe how easily he had been manipulated. He felt revolting, completely worthless. His faith had turned out to be unfounded, leaving him a fool. Foolish for believing.   
And it had to be right then, didn’t it, just when he was thinking of faith, that he realised the stone steps had let him to a tiny roadside shrine, white paper decorations drenched with water. He went up to it, bowed automatically… and then sank to his knees and, hoarsely, tears mixed with rain, screamed.  
That’s when the fox statue stepped out of the shrine.

_BANG BANG BANG_  
Tsuyoshi sat up in bed, disoriented. What was that sound?  
 _BANG BANG BANG_  
“Tsuyoshiii!”  
Was that Shingo’s voice? Why on earth would he be pounding on the door with such urgency at this late hour?  
Tsuyoshi threw on a T-shirt and went to the door. The next thing he knew he had a faceful of dripping wet Shingo, who barrelled into Tsuyoshi, clutched at his shoulders, and exclaimed, “Inari Jinja! That’s where we have to go to get Nakai-kun back, the fox spirit told me!!”  
“Let go!” said Tsuyoshi, who was pretty irritated at having been dragged out of bed, dripped on and shaken by the shoulders for talk as nonsensical as this. Shingo let him go, but kept ranting as Tsuyoshi closed the door, shepherded Shingo inside and got a towel to wrap around him. “There’s another universe, we can get through! No, I mean he can get through and swap – our Nakai-kun and their Nakai-kun – there’s a gateway, like, a portal-thing, and there was a FOX SPIRIT! And it TALKED!! ”  
“How much have you had to drink?” inquired Tsuyoshi gently.  
“Nothing!” Shingo declared. “Not even that expensive fucking wine at Nakai’s place, sitting there next to the red rose, I should have known! Fuck.” He raked his fingers through his sopping hair, shivering.  
“Shingo,” said Tsuyoshi, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“Nakai-kun – isn’t – Nakai-kun,” said Shingo emphatically, finally enunciating the crux of the matter.  
Tsuyoshi regarded Shingo with incomprehension. “Then who is he?”  
“He’s an _evil_ Nakai-kun from a _parallel universe!!!”_  
Tsuyoshi went quiet for a little bit. Then he said, “Shingo have you taken _drugs_?”  
“No!” Shingo howled. “Shut up! You need to believe me. Nakai-kun, he – Goro – he told me – ” This part was just as important but much harder to say. “He’s done something _awful_ , Tsuyoshi.”  
“Who, Goro?”  
“No, Nakai-kun! I’m going to call Goro-chan again, I have to make sure he’s okay.”  
Shingo dug his phone out of his pocket but Tsuyoshi held up his hand. “Wait – something’s happened to Goro-chan?”  
The clench of Shingo’s jaw and the mix of painful emotions on his face convinced Tsuyoshi that Shingo at least believed he was telling the truth – which meant that he wasn’t playing a practical joke. He may still have gone mad, however.  
“I’ll call him,” said Tsuyoshi, wanting to hear what Goro had to say.  
He dialled Goro’s number and listened. Five rings, six rings, seven – and at last Goro picked up.  
“Yeah?” His voice sounded woozy, as if he was drunk or half asleep.  
“Um, I’ve got Shingo at my house,” said Tsuyoshi cautiously, “and he seems to think that you’re in trouble… um, are you okay?”  
Silence. Then, a choked sound that after several seconds Tsuyoshi identified as a sob.  
“Goro-chan?!” said Tsuyoshi, disbelieving his own ears.   
Silence.  
“Where are you?” Tsuyoshi asked desperately.  
Another sob, and then: “In the car. Can’t drive.”  
“Yes, but _where_ in the car?”  
“I had to pull over. Can’t drive now.”  
“That’s okay, Goro-chan, we’ll come and get you. Tell us where you are.”  
At last Goro stammered out his location, and Tsuyoshi told him to hang in there and hung up.  
“We can send Kimura-kun to pick him up,” said Shingo suddenly.  
Tsuyoshi didn’t get it. “Why’s that?”  
“What if Nakai-kun is going after him right now? He could be in danger! Besides, we all need to be here, I need to tell everyone what’s happened to Nakai-kun. I know how to get him back!”  
Tsuyoshi still didn’t entirely believe Shingo or even understand what he was going on about, but he knew that Shingo was serious – and he also knew that something weird was definitely going on with Nakai, and it was time they all got together and discussed it. And if something bad had happened to Goro – and it certainly sounded that way – then they should all be there, middle of the night or no.  
So Tsuyoshi made the call.  
“Moshi moshi, Kimura residence.” Shizuka’s voice was polite but slightly tired.  
“Um, this is Tsuyoshi… could I speak to Kimura-san please?” Nerves made him more polite than usual.  
“Just one moment,” said Shizuka, surprise slightly evident in her voice.  
There was a long pause. Finally the phone was picked up again. “I’m afraid he’s not available to talk right now,” Shizuka said.  
“Um.” The last thing Tsuyoshi wanted to be confronted with was an irate Kimura, but he had no choice. “Um, could you tell him it’s urgent?”  
“Oh!” Shizuka sounded shocked. “I’ll, yes. I’ll tell him.”  
Tsuyoshi heard muffled voices, then the phone line cleared again. “Yes?” came Kimura’s voice testily.  
“Sorry for calling so late,” said Tsuyoshi, “but – Goro’s been hurt. I think.”  
“Been hurt?” Kimura’s tone instantly changed to one of concern. “What happened?”  
“I don’t know,” said Tsuyoshi, “but Shingo just came to my house shouting about something being wrong with Nakai-kun and Goro being in trouble. I called him and he sounds pretty out of it… Will you pick him up and bring him here so we can all sort out what’s happened?”  
Kimura immediately assented. He told Shizuka that something had happened to Goro and he had to check it out – and was about to leave before he turned back, as an afterthought, and said, “Can I ask something of you?”  
She nodded, concerned. “What is it?”  
“If Nakai comes here… _don’t let him in_.”  
Shizuka could hardly believe her ears. “What?!”  
“It doesn’t matter what he says – ”  
“Why would he come here?”  
“ – just for god’s sake don’t let him in this house.”  
And he left.


	23. Our Universe – Friday/Saturday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

After a few minutes driving around the area Tsuyoshi had told him to go to, Kimura spotted Goro’s car at the side of the road and pulled over behind it. He zipped up his jacket, flipped up the hood and went out into the pouring rain. He could see Goro blurrily through the droplet-covered window, hunched over the steering wheel, so he knocked on the window.  
“Goro.”  
Goro didn’t respond – he seemed to be just staring straight ahead.  
Kimura knocked harder and called louder. “Goro! Open up.”  
At last Goro noticed, unlocked the car, and opened the door. He stared at Kimura. His eyes were red and his face oddly slack. “I’m sorry,” he said, unclearly.  
Kimura could immediately see that not only was he in no state to drive, he was in no state to do anything much. So he said, “Come to my car, I’ll drive you to Tsuyoshi’s.”  
“I’m sorry,” said Goro again, looking slightly to Kimura’s right.  
Deciding it was time to take charge, Kimura reached over to undo Goro’s seatbelt – but Goro flinched away from him, throwing his hands up defensively. Kimura drew back, shocked. “Okay! Okay, you do it,” he said. He indicated the seatbelt.  
At last Goro undid himself and climbed stiffly out of the car and into Kimura’s. Kimura had to coax him all the way.  
Kimura drove off towards Tsuyoshi’s, stealing occasional glances at Goro who sat shivering in the passenger seat, his hair a tangled wet mess. Kimura could tell something terrible had happened to Goro, and he had a horrible feeling that Nakai was behind it. 

Kimura and Goro sank down into their seats in Tsuyoshi’s lounge room, gratefully accepting the hot mugs of tea their host pressed into their hands. Goro was starting to look more alive, and he mumbled a brief “thank you” to Tsuyoshi for the tea.  
Kimura looked around at the other three and said, “Now, does anybody mind telling me what the hell is going on?”  
Shingo took a deep breath, leaned forward, and spoke. “I know how to get Nakai-kun back.”  
Kimura drew back in horror. “He’s coming over too?! You can’t let him! You don’t understand, he’s – ”  
“No, not _him_ ,” said Shingo, “ _our_ Nakai-kun!”  
“I think there’s something wrong with him,” persisted Kimura, too anxious to listen properly. “He’s actually become – dangerous – ”  
“I know!” shouted Shingo. “That’s because it’s _not him_!”  
“What, you mean somebody else in disguise? There’s no way someone could fool us, we’ve known him for – ”  
“No! I mean it’s him, but a different him. There are two Nakai-kuns! And we’ve got the wrong one!”  
Everybody stared at him in wordless astonishment.  
Shingo took a deep breath, and continued. “I met this fox spirit…”

Of course, Shingo was quite wrong. There are not two Nakais, nor twenty nor even two hundred, but an infinite number of infinitely varying Nakais in infinitely varying universes. Think about that for a moment – any kind of Nakai you can imagine, actually exists. Just probably not in your own universe.  
However none of this makes any difference to Shingo’s explanation of what they had to do.

“…and that way, we help him through.”  
Shingo only had to look at Goro, Kimura and Tsuyoshi’s uncertain faces to know how strange his story had sounded.  
“A fox spirit, Shingo?” asked Tsuyoshi, who had heard part of this earlier than the others but was still incredulous. “Do those things really exist?”  
Kimura leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Shingo, exactly how much sleep have you had in the past few days?”  
“That has nothing to do with this!”  
Suddenly, Goro spoke up. “I believe it,” he said.  
Shingo’s eyes widened. “Goro…chan…”  
“What he did to me,” said Goro, his voice shaking with the effort of forcing the words out, “was something that Nakai-kun would never do.”  
“He did something to me too,” said Tsuyoshi quietly.  
“And me,” Kimura admitted.  
“So it was all of us,” said Shingo, looking around at his fellow members. Then, he took a deep breath. “The way I see it,” he said, “we have two choices. Either we believe that this person is our Nakai-kun, and he’s gone mad or has been hiding his true nature all these years – in which case we tell the police what he’s done. Or else we believe that he’s a different Nakai-kun from a different universe – and we spend nine hours driving to Inari Jinja, like the fox spirit said, to make sure the two Nakai-kuns swap back.”  
After a long pause, Tsuyoshi said, “we lose nothing from trying.”  
Then Kimura said, “I’d rather believe in fox spirits and parallel universes than believe Nakai has become a monster.”  
And with that, it was decided. “Right,” said Shingo, “we’re going to Kyoto.”

They set off right away, taking two cars – Tsuyoshi and Shingo in one car, Kimura and Goro in the other. The reason for this was ostensibly in case one by some horrible chance broke down, but secretly each of them was dreading having to actually talk to the others.  
At first Shingo and Tsuyoshi did find themselves talking, but it quickly became upsetting and Shingo said he couldn’t have this conversation and concentrate on driving at the same time, so Tsuyoshi fell silent.  
Goro had sat in the back seat. Kimura kept sneaking glances in the rear-view mirror to check he was okay – but when he looked back and saw Goro was silently crying there was nothing he could do. Knowing Goro was trying to hide it, Kimura pretended he hadn’t seen.  
Ten minutes later when he sneaked a look again, Goro was asleep. Kimura was glad. Sleep would probably do him good.

By two in the morning, the adrenaline had worn off and Kimura was struggling to keep his attention on the road. He pulled over and called Shingo.  
“Moshi moshi.”  
“Shingo.”  
“Yeah?”  
“We should book into a motel or something and sleep, I nearly ran off the road just now.”  
“Why don’t you swap with Goro-chan?”  
“You think he’d be okay to drive right now?”  
Shingo sighed. “Point taken. But _I’m_ not tired yet.”  
Kimura smiled tiredly. “We don’t all keep the kind of hours you do. Anyway, we don’t have to be there until tomorrow night.”  
“I know.” Shingo sounded wobbly suddenly. “But I didn’t want to delay in case something went wrong…”  
Kimura felt a burst of protectiveness for him. The horrific events of the past week had converted even the relentlessly cheerful Shingo into a pessimist.  
“It’ll be fine,” said Kimura softly. “We’ll stop off somewhere to sleep and set off again first thing in the morning. Don’t worry.”  
“Kimura-kun,” said Shingo… “Thank you.”


	24. Their Universe – Saturday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

Nakai sat down to the worst breakfast of his life.  
It wasn’t that it was particularly awful-tasting, although leftover curry-rice wasn’t the most appropriate of breakfast foods. It was the pain of seeing the misery that was written all over Shingo’s face. It was the strength of the desire to backtrack and declare that he had changed his mind and would be with Shingo forever and ever, and the absolute impossibility of doing so. He wanted to throw his glass of orange juice at the wall and yell like a madman. He knew, however, that this wouldn’t help. 

_TK TK TK – BRRRRRR_  
The PA system emitted its loathsome sound.   
“Oh _no_ ,” Nakai groaned.  
“SMAP meeting with staff, 8am. SMAP meeting with staff, 8am.”  
“But Shingo,” hissed Nakai, “it’s before eight on a Saturday morning. Surely they can’t call a meeting _now_ , with no warning or anything!”  
“Um,” said Shingo, “they can.”  
“Why would they want to? Everyone’s going to be tired and pissed off.”  
“Perhaps they want to emphasise their power over us,” said Shingo quietly.  
Nakai swallowed. This made sense. “But how long is this thing going to last?”  
Shingo’s anxiety was plain. “I don’t know.”  
They stared at one another – Nakai had arranged for them to be picked up at 8:30…   
“Should we sneak out now?” asked Nakai. “Better to get to the shrine early than late…”  
“But if we’re missing, they might – ”  
“Follow us. You’re right.” Nakai sighed. “We have to go to the meeting. Could we get away with leaving early, if it runs more than half an hour?”  
Shingo paused for a moment, framing his sentence. “These… aren’t the kind of people who would call you Nakai-sama.”  
“Ah.” Nakai took a deep breath in and let it out again. “I guess we’ll have to risk it.”  
We’ve allowed extra time though, we should get to Inari Jinja by 6:22 even if we leave late.”  
And then: “Shit. I’d better get dressed.”   
He flailed around in front of the closet for a few minutes before choosing an outfit that Shingo judged to be almost appropriate. “Not _that_ hat.”  
Nakai had even learned to do a passable approximation of his counterpart’s hairstyle. It was almost funny, Nakai thought, that it was on the day he hoped to leave this place forever that he finally felt he was starting to master being his other self.

They stood silently in the elevator. Nakai eyed the blank eye of the surveillance camera and didn’t close the gap between them, thirty centimetres that felt like a yawning chasm. They watched each number glow green in turn, higher and higher.

Management. The top floor.  
Nakai had questioned Shingo beforehand about what level of politeness would be appropriate, so he at least vaguely knew what sort of language he should be using and how deeply to bow. It was difficult, however, for him to judge how to stay in character: what does an arrogant psychopath look like when he’s trying to be polite?   
Kimura, Tsuyoshi and Goro were outside the door, waiting quietly for him to lead them in. He nodded at them curtly, trying not to meet anyone’s gaze, and entered the office.  
Nakai went through the requisite bows and greetings with some nervousness. He recognised one man there from his own universe (who looked just the same apart from the goatee and the shifty-eyed expression) but most of the managers were different. He hoped he would somehow be able to avoid addressing people by name.   
“The theme for this year’s tour has been decided,” said a bony middle-aged man with glasses.   
So this wasn’t a discussion then – they were merely being told what to do. This was a relief to Nakai, as hopefully it meant he wouldn’t have to volunteer a doubtless inappropriate opinion.   
“The theme is ‘Angels and Demons’,” the man continued, and nodded sharply to a nervous-looking woman who pressed a button to begin the presentation. The image that appeared was of a beautiful angel cowering while a demon brandished a whip.  
It really only got worse from there.

* * *

The meeting dragged on. Nakai kept stealing glances at Shingo, who looked as though he didn’t know whether he wanted to catch Nakai’s eye or avoid his gaze. Nakai guessed that he didn’t want to be caught in obvious non-verbal communication. He also kept surreptitiously checking his watch. 8:23 – they had to be out the front of the building in just over five minutes…  
“Nakai-kun, do you have better things to do?” asked the bony man sharply.  
Nakai sat up straight in his chair like a schoolboy. “No, of course not. I apologise for my lapse of attention.”  
The man looked slightly mollified, but was still displeased.  
The horrible slide show went on.  
When at last the outline of the concert seemed to be over Nakai almost got up and left – but then the man with glasses said, “There is one more topic I believe we need to address, which would be _Shingo’s_ lapse of attention in the recent gala appearance.”  
Shingo turned white.   
“Perhaps Shimoishikawa-kun could tell us more about that.”  
Shimoishikawa shuffled some papers officiously and said, “During the performance on the 27th of July an incident occurred two minutes and seventeen seconds into the song. Katori Shingo was seen to stand still, neither dancing nor singing nor interacting with the audience in any way, for approximately six seconds. The Jimusho received reports of this incident from seven of the staff and twenty-eight members of the audience. It was discussed on five radio programs and two entertainment news reports.”  
He tapped his papers sharply on the table and looked at Shingo expectantly.  
“It was my fault.”  
All heads turned to Nakai.  
He met their stares bravely and spoke up. “While the choreography called for mime, in the performance I followed my impulse to strike Goro.”  
Shingo was mouthing, “Wrong, wrong, wrong!” but this time Nakai ignored him.   
“Shingo saw what I did and that’s what made him freeze up.”  
There was a pause.   
“I apologise for speaking out of turn,” said Kimura, not sounding especially apologetic, “but – why would he be shocked by that?”  
A moment of blind panic, and then – inspiration struck Nakai like lightning. _“It must have reminded him of something,”_ he said, fixing Shingo with his coldest, most sadistic smile.  
Then he had use all his willpower to keep it up while Shingo shrank, terrified, in his chair.  
“I see,” said Shimoishikawa, appearing to accept this as a reasonable explanation.  
“In that case,” the manager said, peering over his glasses, “we will leave the punishment for you to administer privately.”  
Nakai bowed his head, hiding his incredible relief. “I will.”  
“And you can come to me for your own punishment tomorrow morning. Well, that is the last item of business. The meeting is adjourned.”  
Nakai stood up a bit too quickly, and then remembered to copy the others, who were bowing again and thanking each board member for the meeting. Nakai went through all this as fast as he thought he could get away with and still be within the bounds of propriety, then made a big show of roughly grabbing Shingo by the elbow and dragging him out to the elevator before the others could get there. The doors closed – and Nakai embraced him.  
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I had to say something – ”  
“Nakai-sama, the camera,” whispered Shingo frantically, squirming in Nakai’s arms.  
“Screw the camera,” said Nakai, kissing him rebelliously on the cheek. “When we walk out of this building, we’re never coming back.”  
But the car that should have been waiting for them wasn’t there.


	25. Their Universe/Our Universe – Saturday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated PG.

It was two minutes past nine – more than half an hour later than their scheduled departure.  
“He must have given up and left!” said Nakai, turning to Shingo in panic. “What do we do? What do we do?!”  
Suddenly a sleek, black car pulled up. The sun’s reflection winked at them from a tinted window, which rolled down with a smooth mechanical whirr.  
“Good morning,” said the driver, rough but polite. “I’ve been driving around the block.” He had a scar on his chin and wore sunglasses.  
Shingo and Nakai looked at one another and decided to risk it – this must be the guy they’d been waiting for. They got in the back and the car drove off.  
“Do you think we’ll get there in time?” Nakai asked the driver anxiously.  
The driver was stoic. “I’ll do my best.”  
After that he was silent.  
Nakai and Shingo huddled together in the back of the car as it sped out of Tokyo, holding fast to each other’s hands for courage. They peered at the traffic anxiously, trying to gauge how long the journey would be – eight hours, nine? – and whether they would get there in time. 

Nakai woke up to find Shingo shaking him.  
“Hm?” Nakai blinking sleepily, reluctant to remove his hands from their comfortable position draped around Shingo’s neck. Why were they sleeping sitting up?  
“We’re here!”  
The drowsiness vanished. They were still in the back of the car – but they had arrived at Inari Station at last. Nakai checked his watch – almost six.  
“Wait for Shingo,” Nakai said to the driver. “He’ll be back.”  
Shingo imagined the lonely, dangerous trip on a tiny private plane to New Zealand, and grasped Nakai’s hand.  
They set off from the car a rapid pace and in minutes were outside the main torii. After a hurried splashing of hands and faces at the cistern, they approached the main shrine, rang the bell and bowed. Hands were joined in prayer and eyes closed.  
A few seconds later they bowed their farewell and set off up the steps and onto the main path where the long, long line of torii began, fairly glowing red in the late afternoon light.  
Nakai looked sidelong at Shingo, and asked, “Were you praying that I get through or that I don’t get through?”  
Shingo looked straight ahead. “I don’t know.”  
They went quickly, sometimes walking, sometimes running, forever checking the time. Occasionally one of them would stumble over the uneven ground. The passageway of torii became hypnotic, just a red blur. They passed few others, it being too late for most supplicants to be out for pilgrimage or prayer. It was past six o’clock, the autumn light rapidly fading, their shadows lagging fearfully behind them. Through the left where the lines of torii became two; and past and past and at last – there it was. The tiny sub-shrine and the tiny torii… Nakai saw it and his heart sank.  
“It’s tiny!” he exclaimed in dismay. “Can a fox even get through that?”  
“Well,” said Shingo, “you can try.”  
“I guess I have to…” Nakai checked his watch – it was 6:18. “After all that, we have nearly five minutes to spare.”   
Shingo gazed into his eyes with unutterable sadness. “So… this is it.”  
Nakai nodded slowly. “This is it.”  
“If it doesn’t work – ”  
“I’ll go with you,” Nakai reassured. Then he looked at Shingo, looked at his feet, and looked at Shingo again. “Shingo, if this works… I’m never going to see you again.”  
Suddenly, Shingo flung himself at Nakai and hugged him, his wild hair in Nakai’s face. “Do you have to go?” he mumbled into Nakai’s shoulder.  
Nakai, holding Shingo tightly, said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Overcome with need and misery and anger that what was so must be so, he rained kisses on Shingo wherever he could reach, arm, shoulder, neck, jaw, and then Shingo had shifted in his arms and was kissing him on the mouth.  
Nakai kissed him back with desperate passion, with all the knowledge that he would never do so again, not caring whether it was right or normal, while the cicadas whirred and the line of red torii extended before and ahead of them, standing vibrantly out against the quiet green of the trees, and that was when Nakai saw at last that he was in love.   
When they once more drew apart Nakai knew as he looked down at his watch what the time would say.  
6:22.  
He disengaged himself from Shingo and, taking a deep breath, crouched down and inched as close to the torii as he could before lying on his belly in the dirt and starting to wriggle his way forward. He stretched his hands above his head and, with trepidation, poked them through the torii. They felt as if they were entering a thick syrupy liquid. Somehow revolted yet spurred on, he scooted further forward – and then SCREAMED. Another hand had grasped his own. He craned his neck and looked forward; he could see the hand, large and strong, holding his as tightly as a vice – but he couldn’t see anything on the outside of the torii. The wrist appeared to simply… stop. The effect was terrifying. Nakai panicked and struggled, trying to pull his hand free. “Shingo!” he cried, pulling his left hand back out of the portal and stretching it towards Shingo, who grabbed it and tried to pull him back.  
Then Nakai heard a voice that sounded as if it was underwater, calling from beyond the portal, “Nakai-kun?!”  
And that voice also belonged to Shingo.  
Nakai’s eyes grew round. He knew what he had to do.  
“Shingo,” he said, trying to twist back around, “you have to let go.”  
“No!” Shingo cried.  
“It’s you!” Nakai shouted. “It’s you on the other side! He’s pulling me through. You have to let go!”  
At last Shingo understood; hesitated; and finally, let go.  
And on the other side, Shingo pulled Nakai’s arm and Tsuyoshi pulled Shingo and Goro pulled Tsuyoshi and Kimura pulled Goro, until Nakai finally squeezed through and they all fell down in a heap.   
For a moment they all thought they’d gotten the wrong Nakai again – surely this PVC-clad man with the spiky fringe over his eyes couldn’t be theirs? But then they realised he had been impersonating the man they had spent the last five days with – so that was what _he_ truly looked like. Although _he_ , doubtless, would not be covered in dirt – and would not be crying.  
Nakai immediately fell upon Shingo, throwing his arms around his neck and burying his face in Shingo’s chest. Shingo suppressed a shudder and, with a significant look at each of the others, led the softly weeping Nakai back to his car. Tsuyoshi, Goro and Kimura shared a look, then wordlessly went to Kimura’s car. And they all began the long, long drive back to Tokyo.


	26. Their Universe/Our Universe – Saturday onwards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is rated R (violence).

A thick, transparent wave of nothingness swept through Nakai. It was like being stepped through by a wall of jelly. He stumbled as the chair he had been leaning against vanished, and was so disoriented that he failed to react with his usual rapidity when he felt the barrel of a gun against the back of his neck.  
“Strange,” said a voice Nakai knew belonged to Kimura, “I was just poking around in here for evidence only to discover here you, not running off with Shingo after all. Explain.”  
Nakai weighed his chances of being able to physically overcome Kimura right now: not high. But he didn’t understand what Kimura was on about. “Wasn’t it you lot that went running off with Shingo? None of you have been answering your phones all day.”  
There was a click: the gun’s safety being pulled back.  
“I’ve got permission,” Kimura continued, his voice soft and deadly. “They’ve already decided a punishment for you and Shingo. I got permission to carry it out if you were found – and here you are. But where’s the muling idiot you’ve been protecting all week?”  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Nakai wanted to turn around and see what the other man looked like – this sounded like _his_ Kimura talking...  
“Shingo. Where is he?”  
“I don’t know!”  
Kimura sighed. “Tsuyoshi had all sorts of ideas about what to do with you before your execution, you know,” he said. “I don’t have that sort of patience. And I think makes you seem too important. I don’t respect you like that anymore.”  
And he pulled the trigger.

* * *

Nakai felt a rush of nostalgia as he stepped out of the elevator and onto the landing. There was his own front door – he was home at last. He put the keys in the lock, turned them, opened the door, stepped inside… and knew immediately that he wasn’t home at all.  
The floor was clean. There was a lock on his bedroom door. There was a once-red rose dying on the carpet, _his_ dishes in the sink. He’d thrown some of Nakai’s stuff out. He’d slept, and done who knew what else, in Nakai’s bed.  
It had been home. It wasn’t now.  
Nausea coiling in his stomach, he stripped the sheets from the bed and actually chucked them in the garbage. Even after he put clean ones on the bed, though, he didn’t get to sleep for a long time. He kept thinking about what his other self could have done here.  
He did get to sleep, eventually, but woke up several times and reached for Shingo. Who, naturally, wasn’t there.  
The last time he woke up he was unsurprised to see that it was 6:22.

* * *

It was Shingo who called them all together the following evening. It was just like yesterday at Tsuyoshi’s place, sitting around with serious faces and mugs of tea – only now they had Nakai. Now they had succeeded.  
No one looked inclined to celebrate.  
Finally, the member who was best at speaking lived up to his reputation and spoke. “Once upon a time,” said Nakai quietly, “Nakai fell out of bed and into a different universe...”

It was easier to tell his story like this, as if it had happened to somebody else. Easier when he he concentrated on the narrative and tried to ignore the emotional reactions it evoked in both himself and his listeners. He told them of the strict hierarchy, the abuses of power, the physical and psychological cruelty that pervaded everything. He told them of the other Tsuyoshi and Goro’s disturbing dynamic, of his near-sexual experience with the other Kimura, of Mori’s murder and of how the other Shingo, everybody’s whipping boy, had helped him survive and escape.  
The others listened mostly in silence, absorbing the story, finally understanding what kind of a world had produced the psychopath who had wrought havoc on their lives this past week. After listening to the honesty with which Nakai narrated his harrowing experiences, they were able to tell their own stories.  
Shingo told of the other Nakai claiming to be in love with him, of putting aside his own doubts for the man he thought he was his friend and trying something completely new. He also sketched the bare bones of his betrayal via Nakai’s treatment of Goro, who was too distressed to contribute to the narrative himself.  
Tsuyoshi found it easier to show his bandmates the shameful photograph than to put that part of his story into words, but did question Kimura nervously about Nakai’s claim that he was leaving SMAP. Kimura was finally able to lay this rumour well and truly to rest, and was also able to deny the charge of keeping secrets from Shingo specifically.  
“That was a secret,” he said, “that I kept from you all.”  
Shingo swallowed. “Did you and the other Nakai – ?”  
Kimura met his gaze steadily. “Yes,” he said. “And then he threatened to ruin my career and my marriage.”  
Nakai rose from his chair – and bowed deeply in penitence. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I am so sorry for everything I did to you.”  
“Nakai-kun, don’t!” Shingo cried.  
Kimura took him by the shoulder, raising him up from the bow. “We know it wasn’t you.”  
“Well that bastard isn’t here to apologise,” said Nakai angrily, “and somebody has to. You deserve that. I am _sorry_.” He bowed again, staring furiously at the floor, hoping this gesture would have some effect on his dear, wronged friends.  
He only raised his head when, a long moment later, he heard Shingo’s voice.  
“We’ll forgive you,” Shingo said, quiet and sweet. “We will.”  
And that, for the time being, was enough.

* * *

In the course of the following weeks, each member each found time to catch up with some of the others individually, to work out their misunderstandings and deal with some of the changes that their experiences had wrought.

Nakai and Kimura procrastinated about their meeting for some time, before finally sitting down with a bottle of sake in Nakai’s apartment and drinking enough of it to face what was really bothering them.  
“So,” said Nakai, “you were attracted to the other me. And I was attracted to the other you.”  
Slowly, Kimura nodded in assent.  
“But… are _you_ attracted to _me_?”  
There was a long silence. Then, Kimura answered,“…No.”  
“Oh thank goodness. I don’t fancy you either.” Nakai’s shoulders sagged with relief. But then curiosity struck again. “So… why _were_ you attracted to him?”  
Kimura sighed. “I don’t know. He was so angry.”  
“You like angry people??”  
“Uh... I guess I do. I have a history of being drawn to tempestuous, passionate people…” His eyes widened. “…like… Shizuka.”  
Nakai had never envied Kimura Shizuka’s moodiness, but now with insight understood that it was all part of the attraction for him.  
“That must be it,” said Kimura, shaking his head in disbelief. “He seemed like… well, like my type. All I saw was the edge of danger, I didn’t realise how far it went with him. What about you, anyway?”  
“What?”  
“What has your experience with the other me taught you?”  
Nakai thought about it. “I think…” mused Nakai slowly, “that… I’m attracted to you enough to like looking at you… but I don’t want to actually _do_ anything with you.”  
Kimura smiled. “Everybody looks at me,” he said with a shrug, “so I don’t mind if you do too.”  
And after that, they were alright.

Tsuyoshi told Nakai he had been more upset by the idea that Nakai had betrayed him than the idea that Nakai had seduced him. He had, as he pointed out, been awfully drunk. “I do stupid things when I’m drunk all the time,” he said. “That was stupider than most. But you would never do that, so I’m not worried.” 

Goro was brave when Shingo tried to comfort him and embarrassed when Nakai tried again to apologise for what he hadn’t done, but it was Tsuyoshi who slipped past the façade.  
“Goro-chan… are you okay?”  
“I’m okay,” he answered quickly, then bit his lip, realising what he was doing.  
“No. Goro-chan,” said Tsuyoshi again, taking his hand and looking searchingly at his face. “Are you… okay?”  
And Goro, trembling, slowly raised his head to look Tsuyoshi in the eye, and said, “No.”  
Tsuyoshi simply nodded, and said, “What’s wrong?”  
And that was the start of what would become one of many long conversation sessions between the two, as Tsuyoshi listened, patiently and without judgement. At first it was very difficult for Goro to talk at all, but gradually be became able to share things more honestly and openly than before and found that talking to Tsuyoshi clarified his complex knot of feelings and helped them to loosen and untangle a little. He also learned to his surprise that Tsuyoshi, while relatively well adjusted, was not free of problems himself. Thus they became close.

It was Shingo who Nakai had been dreading having to talk to most. He knew it must have become obvious to everybody while he was telling his story that he had become very attached to the other Shingo. And this Shingo, it seemed, had become very attached to the other Nakai – manipulated though that attachment had been.  
“I’m such an idiot,” said Shingo miserably.  
“Eh?”  
“How could I have ever thought you were in love with me? I can’t believe I fell for that…”  
Nakai looked down. “Well… actually it’s not so ridiculous as all that.”  
Shingo looked at him.  
“Shingo and I… the other Shingo, I mean… nearly had something. I kissed the other you,” Nakai admitted.  
“And I kissed the other you,” said Shingo.  
Nakai looked a little shocked at this. “You mean… he didn’t start it?”  
“Of course he started it – the situation, I mean. He was the one who told me he was in love with me and all that. But I started the kiss.”  
Nakai looked down. “Well, I can’t say he made me do it, or that he started it. It just happened. Only once.”  
“I’m such an idiot for falling for that,” he said again.  
“Well, it seems like everyone else was taken in by him as well, so he must have been pretty good at it.”  
“Yeah. A brilliant actor.”  
“Better than me?” Nakai pretended to preen.  
Shingo smiled. “I’m bloody glad you’re not that good.”  
“There, I knew I could do it.”  
Shingo looked at him quizzically. “Do what?”  
“Make you smile.” Nakai gave him a quick, affectionate look. “That’s what I hope to do from now on.”  
They didn’t talk about whether there was any chance for the two of them, under the shadow of each of their cut-off relationships. Not then. That discussion would have to wait further down the track, when time had salved their wounds. 

Kimura never did confess his infidelity to Shizuka, having come to the conclusion that “I accidentally slept with an evil Nakai from a parallel universe” probably wouldn’t go down too well. In any case, having determined that he was _not_ , in fact, in danger of similar behaviour with the usual Nakai, he wasn’t worried about it happening ever again.

Tsuyoshi resolved never to drink excessively again, a resolution which failed spectacularly. 

Every so often, Nakai would go and pray for the Shingo he’d left behind, hoping, hoping that their plan had worked and the agency hadn’t caught up with him. Praying that he was okay.  
Nakai sometimes did this at fox shrines, but the statues never moved.

 

And a long, long way away, as he walked to work down the peaceful, tree-lined road, Shingo thought of the Nakai he would never see again and hoped against hope that he had found his way home.

~END~


End file.
